October 3, 2014

The Oberlin Review

OCTOBER 3, 2014 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 4

Read our editoral on the Student Finance Committee’s decision to cut stipends for student publications and why we believe this will harm the accessibility of journalism on campus.

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Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Voters’ Guide Now Online The League of Women Voters of the Oberlin Area is now posting its voters’ guide on the League of Women Voters’ national website. This new electronic resource will coincide with the reduction of print guides available, from an estimated 30,000 in non-presidential election years to 6,000. This shift will save the League of Women Voters an estimated $6,500 a year.

Oberlin Historical Society Receives Grant The Oberlin Historical Society was awarded a $24,277 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The museum plans to use this money to create two table tours designed for teens and young adults.

OHS was one of seven museums in Ohio and one of 263 programs across the nation to receive a portion of the IMLS’s $30 million 2014 Museums for America grant.

Crowdfunding Comes to Oberlin Oberlin College’s new crowdfunding website launched this Wednesday.

The website is a new method of fundraising for college and features different projects each month. This month the website will raise money for the Undocumented Students’ Scholarship, OSteel’s Trip to Trinidad and the Allen’s Ceiling Conservation Project.

OPD to Begin Using Body-Worn Cameras Madeline Stocker News Editor The Oberlin Police Department is preparing to add bodyworn cameras to their arsenal of technology this week in an attempt to increase both officer accountability and public trust between officers and city residents.

The cameras, which will soon be worn by every officer in the Department, are modeled to record interactions with the public via a largely hands-off interface.

Officers are instructed to turn their camera on at the start of their shift and back off once their shift ends. While they are on, the cameras will video record footage automatically. If an officer wants to record both audio and video, they press one of the camera’s two buttons.

Lt. Mike McCloskey, who will help train officers in the use of their cameras, said he believes that the cameras will help preemptively clarify any future misperceptions regarding officers’ public behavior.

“You’re always going to have citizen complaints, or com-

plaints versus officers, and a lot of it has to do with perspective,” McCloskey said. “If somebody stumbles upon a scene and there were officers involved in a physical struggle with a suspect and they start recording it with a camera, from their perspective it looks like the officers [are] mainly ganging up on that person, but they may not see what precipi-

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tated the event.”

McCloskey also said that the cameras will “automatically increase accountability,” noting that the cameras will likely be used to record the Department’s most common interactions with the public, such as traffic violations and complaint calls.

Recent events pertaining to police-to-public violence — most

Lt. Mike McCloskey poses with one of the Oberlin Police Department’s new body cameras. McCloskey said he hopes the camera will pre-emptively improve the officer’s relationship with the public and decrease the number of public complaints.

Simeon Deutsch

prominently the murder of Mike Brown, a black 18-year-old man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, MO earlier this summer — have increased the call for accountability among law enforcement officials across the country.

However, some have said that the cameras present a potential for abuse, such as racial profiling or unwanted surveillance.

“One of the issues is going to be that we all kind of take for granted that what we do in public can be seen by others,” Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, told ThinkProgress’s Lauren C. Williams in her article regarding the widespread use of body cameras.

“That’s where the real worry is — they’re definitely going to expand its use.”

Other policy analysts have noted several other issues with the technological advance, such as video footage from body cameras ending up online and the possibility that officers will simply turn off their cameras before committing a violation. AccordSee New, page 4

Community Coalition Aims to Work with Developers Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor The Oberlin Community Benefits Coalition, founded in March of 2014 in response to the Oberlin school district’s K–12 campus proposal, is now looking to organize and expand its mission. OCBC is an organization focused on creating community benefit agreements, agreements intended to represent community interests in large-scale development projects.

OCBC’s organizing efforts are a response to the delay of its original project, which was to create a CBA for the construction of the new K–12 campus. The school district was unsuccessful in securing state funds for a new school, causing the project to be delayed and divided into phases. OCBC is still interested in working with the developers to create a CBA for the school project, but they’re also using this delay as an opportunity to further organize their coalition.

“Given that the school project … was our primary focus and our only focus really for the early stages of our existence … we stepped back a bit and decided to now spend some time working on some kind of planning retreat,” said OCBC co-founder Arlene Dunn.

In its first organizational meeting, OCBC created a mission statement and list of measurable results. In addition to creating CBAs for future

development projects in the community, OCBC hopes to promote social and racial inclusion, maintain diversity in the city of Oberlin, support small local businesses, provide access to economic opportunities, create economic sustainability and balance equity.

During the next retreat, OCBC plans to create a strategy and organizational structure that will support their pursuit of these goals.

“We started focusing just on the schools … but there’s all these other things, so we need to step back and look at how [we are] going to structure [our organization]. What are our priorities? Because we want this to be successful,” said Oberlin City Council and OCBC member Sharon Pearson. “We want to see these as the default setting — that this is not something that we’re forcing on somebody to do, but that this is the first thing that anybody who’s going to build in Oberlin is going to think about ... how [they] involve the people who live here.”

OCBC has identified five Oberlin anchor institutions it hopes to work with in the future: the College, the city, Oberlin City Schools, Mercy Allen Hospital and Kendal at Oberlin. OCBC hopes that through developing relationships with these institutions, ultimately every construction project will include a CBA. The College did not sign a CBA before construction began on the Oberlin Inn, located on

J Street Vigil Remembers Losses Obies hold a vigil in memoriam of lives lost in Israel and Gaza.

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ONLINE & IN PRINT

the corner of College Street and Main Street.

The project began before OCBC decided to take a broader approach to CBAs, and, according to Dunn, there has been little effort on the part of the College to reach out to the local community for construction jobs.

Pearson sees the creation of community jobs through CBAs as essential in responding to Lorain County’s lack of public transportation and combating the county’s 21 percent poverty rate.

“We don’t have public transit, so people can’t get to the job centers, so we’ve got to find a way to create the jobs locally and the jobs are here.

We just [have to] change the processes and establish structures that allow people who may not even have skills to have an entry point into the various trades,” said Pearson.

OCBC is also deciding whether it will join a nationwide CBA organization or function independently. John Goldstein, the civic engagement campaign director of the Partnership for Working Families, has worked with OCBC through webinars and conference calls to help organize the coalition.

“The Partnership is applying our network’s collective expertise by supporting local CBA coalitions in over 80 cities, including the Oberlin Community Benefits Coalition,” said Goldstein See OCBC, page 4

on the Fresh Face

Experimental Shakespeare Student actors improvise their way through an outdoor reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

First-year Claudia Scott has adjusted quickly to her role on the volleyball team.

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Arts 10

Sports 16

WEB

All of the content you see here is also available on our website. Check back for the latest stories and interactive polls.

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The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

Committee, Students Discuss Strategic Plan Oliver Bok Staff Writer

Students voiced their concerns about the upcoming Strategic Plan during two listening sessions this week, in which student members of the Strategic Plan Steering Committee fielded questions and discussed new developments.

College junior and Committee member Machmud Makhmudov said that the purpose of the listening sessions, which will take place on a monthly basis, is to provide a bridge between the student population and the Committee. “[The Committee wants] to hear what you guys have to think about the direction of the College, problems or ideas or options so we can hear those and relate them back to the Committee when we meet again in a couple weeks,” said Makhmudov.

In both sessions, the first concern students aired pertained to financial accessibility and high tuition costs. Many students have expressed concern that the upcoming Strategic Plan will suppress objectives relating to financial accessibility in favor of

maximizing College revenue.

Students have cited the results of the past Strategic Plan, which was issued in 2005, as a rationale for their concern. While the past plan, which laid the groundwork for the College’s academic and economic expenditures for the past decade, has resulted in a number of educational advancements, it has also made policy changes that several students have defined as “severely limiting” for low-income students.

A result of the past Strategic Plan that has been under continuous scrutiny is the College’s modification of the study abroad policy. While the policy used to allow students to pay the tuition directly sanctioned by their particular study abroad program, the past Strategic Plan made students pay full Oberlin tuition for each semester spent abroad.

Because Oberlin’s tuition tends to be much more expensive than that of international study away programs — sometimes by as much as $45,000 — certain students have cited this policy change as an example of Oberlin’s disregard for low-income students.

Another issue raised at the

meeting regarded the Steering Committee’s transparency policy.

“A couple of times, [student members of the Steering Committee] have alluded to the fact that there are some pieces of information that need to be kept confidential on the Steering Committee, and I just wanted to know what kind of information needs to be kept confidential and why,” said College junior Tyler Wagner, a newly elected student senator.

According to Machmudov, however, the Steering Committee will be as transparent as their discretion will allow.

“Nothing of that sort has come up so far. ... We’re not in the business of trying to hide things from anybody,” said Makhmudov. “To the extent that we can communicate information, we will. There’s a few times … during the process of something, and you’re arguing and you have certain options on the table and you want to come to a conclusion, and if something comes out at that point that may change the perception of what the issue is … that may stall how the final solution comes forth.”

For Wagner, the commitment to transparency will also im-

prove the Committee’s communication with students.

“When you have different options on the table and you’re arguing, presenting that to the student body and saying, ‘These are all the things we’re considering and these are the reasons why,’ that would allow students to have input before the administration comes out as a united front,” Wagner said. “Please pressure the administration into releasing as much information as possible.”

Students at Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s listening sessions also talked about bettering Student Health and support for students with disabilities. Other issues raised by students included divesting from corporations that do business in Israel, increasing diversity in the student body and reducing the alienation Oberlin students feel towards the Oberlin administration by improving communication and substantive dialogue between the students and administrators.

“There’s obviously a very wide array of student opinions and backgrounds and what they want to see come from the Strategic Planning Committee. I think that

what we can say [is] that we’ve heard them, and we’ll take these ideas and we’ll put these ideas forward and start those conversations and then report back at the next listening session,” said Ryan Dearon, a College sophomore and Committee member.

According to Makhmudov, the Steering Committee will be broken up into three different working groups.

“There’s one for sustainability — in the environmental sense but also in the financial sense, making sure we have a sustainable financial model. One is about the type of student we teach, and how demand for higher education [will] change. … One is along the lines of globalization and how that will affect higher education,” said Makmudov.

The Strategic Plan Steering Committee will meet monthly for the next one to two years and is “tasked with providing a document to guide the Board of Trustees for the next 10 years,” said Makhmudov. The Committee will meet for the second time on Oct. 9, and following that meeting there will be more listening sessions before the Committee meets again in November.

Feature Photo: J Street U Holds Candlelight Vigil

Students gathered in Wilder Bowl this Wednesday to attend J Street U’s vigil commemorating lives lost in Gaza and Israel over the summer. “The goal of this vigil is to seriously grapple with the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, to present a vision for a better future and [to] recognize our responsibility to make choices to achieve it. This vigil is an opportunity to address the deepened divisions in our campus community and to shift the conversation away from blame and towards politics of responsibility,” members of J Street U said in an email to the

Review. Last week, members of Students for a Free Palestine staged an installation that they said was deliberately not a vigil, but rather a call to action against the student body’s “complicity in these acts of violence.” A sign in front of the installation also encouraged viewers to sign a petition “demand[ing] the divestment of [students’] tuition money from corporations that perpetuate and profit from Israeli occupation.” Members of J Street U have said that they are saddened by the polarization within the Oberlin community and that they want to offer

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a more productive path toward establishing sustainable peace.

“To resist the divisiveness of the moment, we [brought] the memory of these dead together in an act of shared mourning, one that also acknowledges the asymmetrical power reflected in the number of dead,” said members of J Street U. At the event, students recited the names of the dead and read poems by candlelight.

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Off the Cuff: Patrick Michaels and Judith Curry, climatologists, acclaimed authors and experts on climate change Patrick J. Michaels is the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, a contributing writer and reviewer of the United Nations Association of State Climatologists and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Judith Curry is a professor and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and currently serves as president and co-owner of Climate Forecast Applications Network LLC. The two sat down with the Review to discuss scientific skeptics, political discourse and the state of science change.

Would you agree with the idea that global warming is a scientific conspiracy? Why or why not?

Patrick Michaels: Hell no.

Judith Curry: It’s an ill-posed question for a scientist. The temperatures are warming; nobody disputes that. People question to what extent humans are causing it.

PM: I think people on the right often see conspiracies where there’s just normal human behavior. Science is not a straightforward proposition. Scientists are subject to all kinds of pressures, and I’ll probably talk about some of those tonight, but it doesn’t proceed in an orderly, linear fashion. … scientists tend to believe, as communities, in certain overarching structures.

American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn actually coined the modern use of the word paradigm and the term paradigm shift, and scientists tend to hold onto ideas for a long time until the weight of evidence against a given paradigm becomes overwhelming; but first, as Kuhn wrote, the evidence is often ignored. And that’s not a conspiracy, that’s just normal human behavior. [Turns to Judith.] Do you agree with that?

JC: There’s no conspiracy involved. People disagree. It’s a complex problem. People disagree.

PM: It doesn’t mean that scientists don’t behave badly and collude. We saw that in the Climategate emails; there is no doubt about that.

I knew that was going on at the time. We can

Patrick Michael (left) and Judith Curry, who participated in a climatology debate in Finney Chapel this past Wednesday.

debate the morality of whoever it was who released them. They didn’t surprise me. Did they surprise you?

JC: Not really. I mean, [I] knew all that was going on.

Dr. Curry, scientists are taught to be skeptics, not blind followers; however, you have been accused of being a “climate heretic” for engaging with the climate change skeptic community. How do you respond to these kinds of accusations, and in what ways would you consider yourself a climate change skeptic, if at all?

JC: OK, I’m a scientist, OK? And one of the norms of science is to be skeptical, to challenge everything, so I’m behaving like a scientist, but when you start labeling people as a skeptic, a denier, whatever, you’re making a political statement, you’re not making a scientific statement. All of those labels, they’re political. They don’t mean anything to me. I’m a scientist and I am doing my job, and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t challenge the existing assumptions and try to find holes in them and try to come up with alternative explanations. I wouldn’t be doing my job otherwise.

Dr. Michaels, you have given numerous talks at various conservative think tank events. What do you think of the role your

Friday, Sept. 26

Thursday, Sept. 25 8:58 a.m. A member of the custodial staff reported that a light blue love seat with two cushions was missing from the west basement TV lounge at Burton Hall.

9:12 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Village Housing unit on Elm Street.

The alarm was activated by overcooked oil.

3:51 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the first floor of South Hall.

An electrician working in the area accidentally activated the alarm.

10:40 a.m. A faculty member reported that the right front bumper and quarter panel of her vehicle was damaged while it was parked in the Robertson parking lot.

2:06 p.m. Officers responded to a report of an odor consistent with burnt marijuana in a room on the first floor of Bailey House. Upon knocking several times, there was no answer and the officer entered the room. The odor of marijuana was present and contraband was observed. A bag was covering the smoke detector was removed.

2:42 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire in a trash can on the north side of Dascomb Hall. An officer extinguished the fire.

Saturday, Sept. 27 12:17 a.m. A staff member re-

scientific opinion plays in the political discourse?

PM: [Scoffs.] I wish I thought it played a great deal. We live in a society where our elected officials and our appointed officials like to say that their regulations are based on uses and italics and quotes and bold science.

Well, oftentimes they’re based on rhetoric in response to certain scientific findings, or they may be based upon scientific compilations that — for reasons that have nothing to do with conspiracy and everything to do with the fact that scientists are people working in environments like universities — may have some systematic problems.

People like to claim that they’re sciencebased, but most of the people who made those claims wouldn’t know what science was if it hit them on the side of the head. Secondly, the understanding of the nature of science and its diversity does not really enter into the fore in Washington. It’s who wants to do what, OK? JC: They pick their experts and they pick their evidence to support what they want to do. And their opposition picks their experts and their sets of evidence and then they argue and then either you get gridlock, or someone gets the majority and wins. … They’re mostly interested in pontificating and not listening to what you have to say. They might want to try and catch you, but they’re not really trying to

ported several individuals urinating on a vehicle parked on the west side of the Science Center. The individuals ran when the officer approached.

One individual was detained, and the incident is currently under investigation.

4:23 a.m. Officers responded to a report of a suspicious male in the common area of Saunders House.

The officers located the male, who was found to be the parent of an alumnus, and escorted him from the building.

8:28 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of Dascomb Hall. The cause of the alarm was found to be smoke from burnt pancakes.

10:20 p.m. A local pizza delivery person requested assistance in looking for their lost money bag, which they thought might be in East Hall.

The area was checked and the bag was not located.

listen to what you have to say.

PM: Let’s try this. If they actually cared, they wouldn’t be walking in and out, checking their Blackberries, blah, blah, blah, while you’re making an expository statement trying to explain your view on science. No, they’re getting texts from their staff: “Ask him ‘A.’ Ask her ‘B.’ Ha ha ha. That’ll get ‘em!”

JC: The interface is broken between climate science and policy. Governments, both nationally and internationally, have forced science to focus only on dangerous human, anthropogenic climate change. Not really to understand how the system works, but only to look at how humans cause climate change.

As a result, we don’t really understand the rest of the climate system and how much is natural variability versus human cause. That’s really been based on U.N. policies, government policies, and where the funding goes. As a result, there’s a whole lot of things we don’t understand about the climate.

But scientists have done their part, because they’re only looking at one thing, and they become highly confident about that one thing when they’re not looking at the big picture. ... You’ve got this interplay between science and the policymakers and it’s very unhealthy. So it’s led us to policies that don’t make sense and that lead us to being between a rock and hard place.

PM: Have you ever heard the statement “If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail?”

Well, thing is, right now the hammer is carbon dioxide. Go back, maybe fifteen, twenty years, and the hammer might have been acid rain.

And it’s kind of funny, if you want to know what the hammer du jour is, and the hammer du jour is always used for political purposes.

Try and look on a decadal scale at what the vogue was that killed the dinosaurs. For example, right now, climate change killed the dinosaurs. If you go back, I remember, in the late 1980s, ozone depletion killed the dinosaurs.

Before that, it might have been acid precipitation. Those are hammers looking for nails.

Sunday, Sept. 28 2:31 p.m. Two students reported the theft of their phones, which were stolen while they were playing basketball in Philips gym. One phone is a black iPhone 5 with a broken screen. The other is a black iPhone 4. The theft was reported to the Oberlin Police Department.

Monday, Sept. 29 6:07 a.m. A student residing at a Village Housing unit on Cedar Street reported a loud beeping in the basement. Officers located a battery-operated smoke detector that was beeping at the bottom of the stairs. A work order was filed for replacement.

9:15 a.m. Allen Memorial Art Museum security officers assisted a student who fainted in the Willard Newel Gallery. The student,

Interview by Laura Paddock Photos courtesy of cato.org and gtalumnimag.org

who was responsive, said she was fine and rejoined her class.

Tuesday, Sept. 30 9:08 a.m. A Mudd library staff member reported extensive graffiti on the exterior east wall of Mudd library, A-Level. The graffiti was done in chalk and was non-offensive in nature. A work order was filed for cleanup.

9:22 a.m. An officer on patrol observed extensive graffiti on the south exterior wall of Fairchild House. The graffiti was non-offensive and was done in chalk. A work order was filed for clean up.

4:36 p.m. A student staff member reported a strong odor consistent with burnt marijuana coming from a room on the first floor of Asia House. An officer made contact with occupants of the room, who admitted to smoking marijuana.

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The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

City Receives $350,000 Grant to Restore 13 Homes Sarah Chatta Oberlin, Sheffield Lake and Lorain County recently received $1,150,000 to rehabilitate homes for low- to medium-income families. The grant, which was awarded through the State’s Community Housing Impact and Preservation fund, is expected to fund a total of 58 houses, including 15 homes in Lorain County and 13 homes in both Oberlin and Sheffield, according to Don Romancak, Lorain County’s director of community development.

The CHIP fund altered the parameters of its program this year, allowing the partnership between Oberlin, Sheffield and Lorain that secured Oberlin $350,000. For a decade Oberlin had been applying on its own, without the possibility of applying as a partnership, and had been receiving $300,000.

Carrie Handy, an economic development and housing officer for the city of Oberlin, said that she was pleased with this year’s countywide partnership and that she hopes it will benefit Lorain County residents.

“Anytime that we can work together with the county is a good thing,” Handy said. “Over the years they’ve really cut that program back; the CHIP grants used to be

$500,000, sometimes $550,000. … You know, little cities who may have felt that they didn’t have the capacity to take on the CHIP grant. Housing rehab is a lot of work, [but] if they can partner with the county it’s a lot more staff.”

Oberlin receives this grant as a community that is considered to have a high percentage of people with low to moderate income.

Eligibility for the grant extends to those with moderate income, who make up 50 to 80 percent of Oberlin residents, according to Handy.

In the state of Ohio, Oberlin falls into the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor region, where low income is defined as between a range of $13,200 at the lowest end of a one-person residence and $66,150 at the low-income maximum of an eight-person residence.

“I would say it’s really open to anyone whose income qualifies within the city,” Hardy said. “A family of four making $30,000 to $40,000 would probably qualify. Eighty percent of the median income for the county is considered ‘moderate income’, so a lot of people qualify. Sometimes they limit it to 50 percent, but it can be up to 80.”

According to Romancak, who divides the awards from CHIP grants between full-

rehabilitation projects, each family will be granted up to about $40,000 per house and $6,000 for smaller repairs.

Although CHIP grants can fund a variety of projects — including insulation, rewiring, replacement, structural repairs and lead paint and asbestos removal — even if an application has been accepted, the municipality must “walk away” if the project costs more than the grant covers. This occurs in situations when considerable amounts of asbestos or lead paint must be removed or covered, especially in very old houses, and $40,000 is no longer enough to fund the project. The state’s rehabilitation standards can also force the municipality to walk away because the projects must be thorough enough to meet state qualifications.

Handy said that the process of selecting applicants and determining awards is based on a family’s income, the number of residents and the level of rehabilitation applied for by the family.

“The state has a scoring sheet where they evaluate all of the applications, and the top scorers get the money. Then we, or the county, would give out the money; usually it’s first come, first served. So usually you’re looking

at the applications as they come in,” said Handy.

For Ohio State Representative and Lorain Democrat Dan Ramos, the funding allows a financial accessibility that “has long been a staple of America’s strong middle class.”

“These funds will go a long way to ensuring that all residents of Sheffield Lake and Oberlin have a place to call home,” said Ramos in a press release.

According to the State Controlling Board, Lorain County’s CHIP grant will completely renovate 20 homes, or “dwelling units,” for $650,000, fund general repair on 43 units for $345,000 and provide “tenant-based rental assistance” for 21 units for $16,500.

Applications will now be processed at the county level instead of by the Oberlin Development Department. The number of accepted applications will be governed by the amount of money that each application receives out of Oberlin’s total award of $350,000.

Once an application is selected, county administrators will review the requests made by the applicant and provide a list of contractors to do the repairs, which applicants can choose from. Later this month, the county will be holding an open house for contractors to apply to be on this list.

New Cameras Will Increase Accountability, Says Lieutenant Continued from page 1 ing to The Atlantic’s CityLab, even when officers are outfitted with body cameras, their departments will often refuse to release the footage.

McCloskey, however, said he believes that the struggle for footage will likely not become an issue for Oberlin’s relatively quiet police force. He does, however, recognize that the officers’ ability to consistently capture footage may present them with some legal dilemmas, especially when they are recording interactions within a private residence.

Asked whether or not his department would use the footage in an attempt to catch any extraneous violations, McCloskey said that it would depend on whether his officers wished to pursue further prosecution.

“We’d be justified in recording those actions, because we’re there on legal authority,” McCloskey said. “If in reviewing the footage we saw a bong, we wouldn’t be legally allowed to go back and enter the residence … [but] we could send that to the prosecutor’s office and we could request a search warrant. It’s definitely a tool that could help us.”

Though McCloskey said he does not expect the cameras to affect his officers’ behavior, numerous studies have shown that the presence of body cameras often drasti-

Lt. Mike McCloskey holds one of the police department’s new body cameras. These cameras will record interactions between the public and officers.

Madeline Stocker

cally alters a police officer’s relationship with the public, namely by reducing their use of force.

One of these studies is currently being conducted by William A. Farrar, the police chief in Rialto, CA. Farrar, who is measuring the effects of body-worn cameras on the relationship between his officers and the public, found that, even with only half of his department wear-

ing cameras, there was an 88 percent decline in public complaints filed against officers. Farrar also found that his officers were 59 percent less likely to use force.

“When you put a camera on a police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better,” Farrar told The New York Times. “And if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the citizen will behave a little better.”

While Rialto is one of the only cities in the nation where the use of police-worn body cameras has been studied systematically, experts increasingly predict that body cameras will become a staple in department equipment. A spokesperson for Taser International, a camera manufacturing company that supplied both Rialto’s and Oberlin’s body cameras, reported that their company has recently made contracts with police departments across the country, including ones in major cities such as San Diego, Chicago and Hartford, CT. “The increase in technology automatically increases officer accountability,” McCloskey said. “Officers have always been in the public eye; we really have to expect to be scrutinized by the public.”

The Oberlin Police Department’s body cameras were funded by a federal grant for law enforcement equipment in which the department was awarded $5,448 to purchase the cameras.

OCBC Expands Scope of Organization to New Construction Projects Continued from page 1 in an email statement to the Review. “Together, we have explored how to link new projects (school construction and private development) to job creation, job training, environmental sustainability, affordable housing and other deeply felt community needs.”

CBAs are part of a larger nationwide movement to ensure that local communities benefit from new development projects, particularly marginalized groups such as lowincome individuals and communities of color. The unique requirements of each area mean CBAs vary greatly depending on the location and project.

“It’s all these groups that come together that are looking really for a piece of the pie that represents what community is all about. It takes a lot of different civic groups,” said Pearson. “The strength behind CBAs is when you have a lot of sup-

port from civic established groups, not just interested people involved in the process, and coming to an agreement as to what is the benefit to the community so that we can maintain or increase what we have.

So that’s why there’s no one fit for every community. It depends on those community needs.”

CBAs around the nation, however, have been criticized for their limited impact and sometimes narrow representation of the community.

Carrie Handy, Housing and Economic Development Officer, believes the goals of the city and the goals of OCBC are very similar and questions whether CBAs are entirely necessary in city projects.

“All those things that are usually in the Community Benefits Agreement could be in [the city’s] development agreement,” said Handy.

“I think the city wants that stuff, too. … whether we actually need a separate agreement for that, I don’t

Members of the Oberlin Community Benefits Coalition meet in the Oberlin Public Library to discuss the next steps for their organization. OCBC hopes to create more jobs and further community interests by forming Community Benefit Agreements with new development projects in town. Effie Kline-Salamon

know.”

Handy spoke specifically about the Green Acres project, a project OCBC hopes to sign a CBA with next year. Green Acres is a mixed-

income housing development and park that will be built on city-owned land off of East Lorain Street and State Route 511.

The city has been working on

the project with The Community Builders, a nonprofit development company interested in workforce development and hiring locally.

Dunn and Pearson see The Community Builders as ideal developers to work with to create a CBA. They hope to reach an agreement once the developer files the subsidized housing tax credits this winter.

Ideally, OCBC also hopes to create a CBA for the proposed Lorain County Health & Dentistry branch opening on Main Street, but, due to the condensed time scale and small size of the project, they are not confident an agreement can be reached.

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Opinions The Oberlin Review

Ocober 3, 2014

Page 5

The Oberlin Review

WILDER VOICE

Publication of Record for Oberlin College — Established 1874 —

Oberlin College’s Magazine for Creative Nonfiction and Long-Form Journalism — Established 2005 —

Editors-in-Chief Julia Herbst Rose Stoloff

Managing Editor Julian Ring

Opinions Editor Sam White

Editor-in-Chief Carla Yengo-Kahn

Managing Editor Nolan Boomer

SFC Cuts Hurt Quality, Accessibility of Publications At Oberlin, journalism falls largely outside the scope of any department and thus into the hands of student publications. We strive to report on issues that matter, helping students remain informed and empowering them to serve as voices for change within their community. But a recent financial decision endangers all that.

This week, the Review Editorial Board is partnering with the editors of Wilder Voice to call attention to recent policy changes by the Student Finance Committee that threaten student journalism at Oberlin. The Committee’s recent budget cuts not only limit our organizations’ accessibility, but also are the result of the SFC’s willfully ignorant and biased decision-making process.

In what we feel was an arbitrary ruling, the SFC cut the Review’s budget for the 2014–2015 academic year by more than $6,000, subtracting most of that difference from editors’ stipends. Wilder Voice lost its stipends completely, while WOBC board members each lost the equivalent of 20 hours of pay per semester. The SFC has provided various unsatisfactory justifications for this change; more importantly, the Committee has failed to understand the consequences its decision will have on the quality and accessibility of campus publications.

Like other publications at Oberlin, the Review and Wilder Voice have historically provided stipends to their editors. These stipends allow editors to devote as many as 30 hours per week to the publication without having to work other paid jobs to cover their expenses, allowing students from a wider variety of economic backgrounds to apply to

these positions. As with any publication, it is important for our staffs to represent a diverse array of student voices in order to accurately reflect the community we represent.

In their limited explanation of the decision to cut stipends for student publications, Committee representatives have said time and again that no student organization needs stipends in order to function. There is partial truth to this statement: No staff member expects to be paid for the full hours they work, and even without stipends, the Review and Wilder Voice could, in all likelihood, continue to function. What the SFC fails to consider, however, is that our publications’ editorial makeup and quality of coverage has the potential to be drastically altered.

Without paying editors for their work, only students in positions of economic privilege would be able to lead the Review and Wilder Voice — those who have the available time and resources to work long hours as volunteers. Conversely, those who must work paid jobs in order to cover college and living costs — namely, lower-income students — would be effectively barred from serving as editors. Especially vulnerable are those students in leadership positions who have put in the time to rise through the editorial ranks and who may be unable to continue in these positions, thus dramatically limiting institutional memory. Our publications’ survival, then, is not our main concern; even if we continued to publish issues, we would do so at the expense of quality, equity and representation.

The SFC’s flawed logic further equates the needs of publications with

those of other student organizations.

This is inaccurate. Student publications, though they may be chartered organizations, play a unique role on campus and in the wider Oberlin community. Publications like the Review and Wilder Voice are charged not only with informing the public about relevant issues, but also with providing essential forums for intra-community discussion and debate that few other groups can. Furthermore, student publications serve an educational purpose: In the absence of a proper journalism program, jobs at campus publications provide students with opportunities to acquire hands-on training in the field. To this end, one of the greatest responsibilities that editors hold is that of coaching writers through the reporting, drafting and editing processes.

The Review is now in its 140th year of operation as the publication of record for both the College and the city of Oberlin. To strip the Review of the funding it requires to fulfill these informational and educational roles is to compromise a crucial element of public record-keeping, discourse and tradition.

No less troubling than these harmful decisions is the manner in which the SFC reached them. As the principal body charged with managing budgets and allocating resources for all student organizations, the SFC holds significant power and responsibility in governing student life. During the course of the Review’s interactions with the SFC over the past several months, the committee has repeatedly failed to fulfill these essential obligations.

Amid inadequate and conflicting

information, the SFC has confirmed one central factor in its decision to cut stipends: responses to Question 3 on Student Senate’s fall 2013 referendum. The question, worded indiscriminately, asked students whether “[The] Office of the Student Treasurer, Exco (sic) Committee, The Oberlin Review, WOBC, The Grape, Wilder Voice, Bike Co-op, and Pottery Co-op” should “receive stipends from the Student Activity Fund.” We believes it goes without saying that one question without context — especially one which fails to distinguish publications like the Review and the Wilder Voice from organizations like the Pottery Co-op and the ExCo Committee — provides woefully inadequate justification for the sweeping cuts enacted in its wake.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“I guess this process is a lot of assuming. I honestly think no matter how descriptive the Review is, because we have certain opinions of them, it wouldn’t matter.”

From SFC minutes ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– While a member of the SFC conceded to us that the question was indeed biased, this did not stop the committee from using another question on the same referendum to authorize its own members to bill for their hours. This question, unlike the question regard-

ing student publications, included a full paragraph’s worth of supporting information explaining the logistics of the SFC’s compensation.

This hypocrisy would be less egregious were it not paired with astounding inconsistency during the policy’s rollout. Other organizations included in the same referendum question, including The Grape, did not receive any significant budget cuts. This leads us to believe that the SFC’s supposed plan for a publication-wide budget reduction was simply an arbitrary excuse to cut costs.

The SFC has not publicly provided any basis for its decision to differentiate between publications. Minutes from SFC budgeting meetings, however, provide some insight. Though the Review provided the committee with position descriptions and budget details in its initial proposal, the committee apparently disregarded this information and instead discussed the particulars of stipended Review positions based on hearsay. “A friend of mine was Editorin-Chief for the Review two years ago,” one committee member said in the minutes, “and said he did not work 30 hours a week.” With regard to our layout process, another member said, “I don’t think it’s as time-consuming or labor-intensive as the Review makes it.” Troublingly, the members’ indifference and unfounded personal biases against the Review are evident throughout the meeting minutes. “The quality is so low,” a third member said; “I guess this process is a lot of assuming,” said a fourth. “I honestly think no matter how See Editorial, page 6

This editorial is the responsibility of the Editorial Boards of the Review and Wilder Voice and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staffs of either publication.

SFP on Anti-Semitism, Complicity and Action To the Editors: The night of Sept. 23, Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine installed 2,133 black flags in Wilder Bowl in an effort to raise campus consciousness regarding the military offensive enacted this summer against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Each flag represented the life of a Palestinian murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces in July and August of 2014. Many of our peers have raised concerns regarding the implications of this action. Thus far, we have identified three main points of contention. We would like to address them as follows:

Letters to the Editors

1. The installation is anti-Semitic because it occurred during Rosh Hashanah.

This has been perhaps the primary critique of the action: that the mourning of Palestinian deaths committed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces is incommensurable with the celebration of the Jewish New Year. Students have argued that had the flags commemorating the 2,133 Palestinians killed during Operation Protective Edge been installed on any other day, the action would not have been anti-Semitic. Yet because criticism of Israel and Oberlin College’s complicity in the occupation was raised on Rosh Hashanah, the argument goes, SFP is guilty of anti-Semitism.

It is important to refute this claim. Though SFP had originally intended for the installation to begin on Sept. 23, on the official International Day of

Action on College Campuses called for by American Muslims for Palestine, we were denied access to Wilder Bowl on this date due to scheduling conflicts. Thus, we installed the flags on the night of the 23rd into the early morning of the 24th. While we would have preferred to install the flags on the 23rd, we maintain that the installation would have remained until the 27th had it been executed one day earlier and that the installation was in accordance with the larger Day of Action.

The timing of this installation was clearly provocative; our view is that recognizing the incredible amount of human loss resulting from Operation Protective Edge and challenging both the administration and student body to consider our own complicity in the occupation should not be mutually exclusive with the celebration of the

Jewish New Year. Feeling discomfort because one must confront the realities of Operation Protective Edge carried out in the name of the safety of the Jewish people does not amount to anti-Semitism, no matter what day of the year it is. Moreover, the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is unfounded. There is nothing bigoted about voicing disapproval toward the Israeli state, nor exposing its colonial and apartheid practices. It is reductive in the extreme to assert that criticism of Israel — and, equally important, of Oberlin’s role in sustaining the occupation — is targeting Jewish students. Not only does this kind of sentiment homogenize the wide range of opinion among Jews at Oberlin and effectively delegitimize the experiSee Letters, page 6

SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words, except with the consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names, for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm authorship.

The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for content, space, spelling, grammar and libel. Editors will work with columnists and contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication.

Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar.

In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission.

The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response.

The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to the author of a letter to the editors.

Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.

Opinions

Page 6

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

College Fiscal Plan Edges Out Low-Income Co-opers Taylor Field Staff Writer At this week’s Board Night in Oberlin’s co-ops, representatives of OSCA’s Board of Directors introduced a caucus based on the covert changes made to Oberlin College’s financial aid policy last semester, reopening discussion on the detrimental impact these changes will have on co-op accessibility.

The policy, which originally did not adjust financial aid based on a student’s choice to live or dine in OSCA, changed without warning last semester to read, “If you choose to live or dine in a co-op, your financial aid will be adjusted accordingly.” On April 13, after extensive student protests, College President Marvin Krislov announced in an email to the student body that the policy change would be delayed by one year.

When news of this policy change broke last spring, I wasn’t on campus, but information and outrage flooded my social media feeds. After parsing through this informational overload, I was able to reduce the policy change to the following simple, albeit deeply unsettling, terms: Behind our backs and without notice, the College administration has entirely eliminated OSCA’s position as an affordable alternative for students struggling to save money on a $239,787 education.

That figure — $239,787 — is calculated based on tuition, required fees and the cheapest nonOSCA housing and dining plans, each individually determined based on options available to firstyears, sophomores, juniors and seniors. As long as OSCA functions as an alternative living and dining system, students have the option to reduce this hefty total by $14,914. This reduction can mean the difference between a student who can afford an Oberlin education and one who cannot.

The administration’s actions speak loudly: These

students are not a valuable source of revenue.

These students do not matter.

What angers me is not only the secretive way the College went about this change, but the very language used in the policy. “If you choose to live or dine in a co-op, your financial aid will be adjusted accordingly,” the policy reads. When it comes to affording college, choosing a meal plan is not a free choice based on whim or taste; for some students, housing and dining options are among few other areas where it’s possible to cut costs. For many, the cheapest option is the only option; this choice is not always a matter of want, but is often a matter of financial need. Choosing OSCA may be choosing to stay in school. Is that really a choice worth punishing?

This financial aid policy issue returns to the table as the College is undergoing its own financial self-reflection — the Strategic Planning Steering Committee meetings. I had heard the phrase “Strategic Planning” thrown around several times, but never quite had a solid grasp on what it was. In the Sept. 12 issue of the Review, Oliver Bok’s article “Committee Convenes to Plan College’s Fiscal Future” defined the Steering Committee as “an organization whose purpose is to determine the future of Oberlin’s educational and financial endeavors.” While this is the most succinct definition I’ve heard, the concept and purpose of this omnipotent Strategic Planning Steering Committee still seem vague. How does any organization begin to go about determining the future of Oberlin College?

While the Steering Committee preaches transparency, I don’t think I’m the only one who’s been left scratching their head over this “Strategic Plan” concept. Committee member and Politics Department Chair Chris Howell is quoted in Bok’s article as saying that the last Strategic Planning meetings proved “disastrous” and that “there is a healthy skepticism” among faculty regarding the effective-

ness of the Strategic Plan. And despite his unwavering support of the plan, even Krislov — a Committee co-chair himself — has spoken about the impossibility of constructing it. “How can Oberlin plan for a future that’s inherently unpredictable?”

Krislov said in Bok’s article. If the president doesn’t know how to do it, and the majority of the student body can’t define it, how can this Strategic Plan possibly be transparent, much less effective?

My doubts about the Strategic Planning process aside, the Plan historically hasn’t been conducive to making Oberlin more affordable. The last version of the Strategic Plan from 2005 defined the College’s financial goals in the following terms: “To remain a great institution of American higher education, Oberlin must enhance each of its revenue streams. Currently its most critical financial priority must be to realize more net tuition revenue per student and to do so in ways that honor Oberlin’s long traditions of racial and socioeconomic diversity.”

In simple terms, the last Strategic Plan called for the College to profit more off its students — to increase tuition and decrease financial aid. While the Plan does throw lower-income students a bone at the end of the passage, the proposed policy change spits in the face of “Oberlin’s long tradition of socioeconomic diversity.”

The Plan also defines OSCA as a non-profit organization, one that is committed to providing housing and dining at actual cost, not for profit or to “enhance revenue streams.” Thus, the revenue from decreased financial aid would not go to OSCA, but rather the College would reabsorb the money, according to the OSCA Board.

Last Sunday, the Board sent out the OSCA Member Survey, which asks a number of questions about demographics and OSCA’s effectiveness and role in student life. The survey ends with a section on the proposed financial aid policy change, and the final question outlines a newly

Letters to the Editors, Cont.

Continued from page 5 ences of those who identify as anti-Zionist, but it mistakenly centers the conversation on the role of Jewish identity as it relates to the occupation.

This is a grave error. The focus of this action should be on the Palestinians killed by Israel’s military force. To continually shift the focus to a discussion of Jewish identity rather than the loss of Palestinian life and the radically uneven balance of power in the conflict would represent a further reluctance to seriously engage with our complicity in the occupation and further naturalizes Israel’s impunity as an ethnocratic state.

2. The installation blames American Jewish students for the IDF’s actions.

By no means did our mission statement — which calls for the recognition of our complicity in the acts of violence this summer — imply that we believe American Jews, both on campus and nationally, should be blamed for the actions of the IDF; it is clearly stated that Oberlin College students as a whole must consider our responsibilities in contributing to the funding of this institution as it invests our tuitions in corporations perpetuating the occupation of Palestine. As conscious members of this community, as well as the larger global community, we must take responsibility for the impact of our actions, individually and institutionally.

Students have condemned this action by arguing that they as individuals did not contribute to the assaults on Gaza and therefore must be exempt from any liability in this violence — it has been argued that the installation unfairly levels blame on students, Jewish students specifically. However, violence is both direct and indirect. We do have a degree of control over our role in the occupation, and it is our responsibility to act on this.

3. The ‘call to action’ is threatening; there are other ways of going about promoting peace.

The call to action embodied in our mission statement was aligned with the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign called for by Palestinian civil society in 2005.

We refuse to participate in the normalization of the displacement and dehumanization of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. As a Palestine solidarity organization, we are directly responding to the demands of the Palestinian people. Moreover, BDS is an explicitly nonviolent organizing tactic endorsed by broad coalitions around the world.

Our peers have decried the direct wording of the mission statement. Yet we ask: What is a call for change if not voiced with passion?

The Student Senate approved a divestment resolution in the spring of 2013, yet both the administration and Board of Trustees have been dismissive at best in responding to this call. Inaction will not result in fewer Palestinian deaths, an end to the occupation or equal rights for Palestinians in Israel. We mourn, we pray for peace. But we will not be silent.

In solidarity and in struggle, –Students for a Free Palestine

FASA Stands in Solidarity with Palestinians To the Editors: The Filipinx American Students Association at Oberlin College joins Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine and other organizations in colleges and universities around the world in the sustained action to free Palestine and to end the siege on Gaza. We condemn in the strongest terms the Zionist government of Israel, U.S. imperialists and all other imperialists.

These oppressors transgress national borders, and this summer the world was reminded that the violence against Palestinians

parallels the violence against Black Americans, as in the case of Michael Brown, Renisha McBride, Trayvon Martin and many violently unnamed and unrecorded persons. From Palestine to Ferguson, oppression everywhere must end.

As stated in the 2,133 Black Flags action in honor of the Palestinians murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces’ Operation Protective Edge, this is a call to action. We urge Oberlin College yet again to execute the demands stated in the Oberlin Divestment Resolution and to redress its complicity in the oppression of Palestinian people. Specifically, we amplify the demands to divest from the human rights violators including, but not limited to, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Group 4 Securicor, SodaStream, Elbit Systems and Veolia.

As Filipinxs in the diaspora, we share the common imperialist oppressor — the United States of America — with the Palestinian people. Millions of U.S. tax and private dollars sustain the fascist Philippine military. The U.S. military itself backs Philippine President B.S. Aquino, only the latest in a long history of puppet regimes constructed through U.S. imperialism. Together these military, political and economic powers repress and violate countless human rights against our peoples in their struggle for freedom, democracy and justice from both the Philippine state and U.S. imperialism. We stand up against injustice in the Philippines, and we stand up against injustice in Palestine.

We call specifically on other colleges, universities and organizations within them to work actively to destroy injustice against Palestinians and other oppressed peoples.

End the complicity of universities in Israeli occupation.

End U.S. imperialism.

End the siege on Gaza.

Free Palestine.

–Filipinx American Students Association

proposed stipend system that would compensate students in co-ops at approximately minimum wage for the hours they work in OSCA. There are so many disturbing problems with this that I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, if it comes to compensating co-op members for their labor, minimum wage is not even close to accurate. Within any co-op, students are collectively responsible for buying food for the co-op, planning meals, tracking dietary needs, training members in food safety, leading discussions, handling complaints and concerns, managing finances, maintaining functional industrial kitchen equipment and organizing a workchart, plus the day-to-day cooking and cleaning. All of this for $8.50 per hour in a four-hour co-op and just $6.79 per hour in a five-hour co-op? By comparison, student wages in CDS jobs range from $8.50 per hour for serving food to $9.40 per hour for washing pots. Furthermore, co-op members sacrifice more than just their labor hours to eat in OSCA: co-ops offer only one food option per meal, and meals are at set times around which students must work. A stipend that makes up a miniscule fraction of co-op members’ current savings is both immensely unfair and terribly illogical, not to mention disrespectful.

I would like to call on those in OSCA to take the Member Survey and to use your answers to express outrage and disgust at how this proposed financial aid policy disregards lower-income students and impacts all co-op members.

I would also like to call on all students to make their voices heard by the Strategic Plan Steering Committee at the next listening sessions. Not being in OSCA is no reason to ignore language that defines students as “revenue streams.” Let the 2005 Strategic Plan be a warning, not merely a premonition. Don’t let the administration “strategically plan” to turn the student body into a profit margin.

Editorial: Student Journalism Undervalued Continued from page 5 descriptive the Review is, because we have certain opinions of them, it wouldn’t matter.”

When judging the performance of an organization with obligations as complex as those of the SFC, it’s reasonable to allow for minor shortcomings, so long as they are swiftly addressed and corrected. The Review knows all too well how difficult it can be to remain consistent due to frequent staff turnover. The SFC, however, has proven itself incompetent at communicating its policies and decisions, arguably the Committee’s most important responsibility. Not until the Review had already hired new editors and promised stipends at the end of the 2013–2014 year did the SFC announce these policy changes, effective immediately. Following this, the committee ignored multiple attempts by the Review over a four-month period to schedule ad hoc meetings until our staff approached them in person.

The Editorial Board does not wish to attack any members of the SFC ad hominem, nor does it seek to initiate a series of back-and-forth arguments across our pages. We also recognize that with this editorial, we may be, in effect, biting the hand that feeds us. At this point, however, we have attempted every other potential avenue of civil communication with the SFC to no avail.

Despite these myriad setbacks, the Review is committed to maintaining the accessibility of its editorial positions, and is fortunate enough to have its own source of revenue to finance this. Through advertising, we believe that we will be able to raise enough money to pay our editors at the level we promised them upon hiring, and we plan to increase our advertising revenue in order to maintain these stipends for as long as possible. But other student publications, including Wilder Voice, do not have this safeguard. What’s more, its current allocation puts the Review in a dangerous financial situation, with no reserve funds to cover unforeseen costs.

The Editorial Board is concerned that the impacts of SFC’s decision will reverberate far beyond this academic year. This policy change represents the first step down a slippery slope, one which jeopardizes the viability and accessibility of all student publications at Oberlin. It also reflects a larger societal tendency to devalue journalism — an attitude which must not inform how publications are funded.

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

Opinions

Page 7

Students Must Mobilize Against Feminism Needs Men On Proposed Pipeline Through Oberlin Board, Not In Control CJ Blair Columnist

Early during Orientation, another student told me that there were plans to build a natural gas pipeline that would go straight through Oberlin. When I heard this, I almost laughed, because I knew it wouldn’t happen. Surely the students of one of the world’s most politically active colleges would do everything in their power to prevent a project like this.

When I joined Oberlin AntiFrack, however, I realized that this was true only for a small group of students; the campus as a whole was far from being united and ready to mobilize against the pipeline. With several crucial dates in the battle against the Nexus Pipeline just days away, it is without question the most important time to make sure Oberlin students are aware and informed about this situation.

The Nexus Pipeline, owned by the multinational Spectra Energy Corporation, is a proposed 250-mile pipeline that will carry natural gas from northeast Ohio to Canada. It will be nearly four feet in diameter, sending 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of gas to Canada.

Its construction alone will require digging up thousands of acres of land along the line’s proposed path. While these facts inspire action among die-hard environmentalists, they are far from sufficient in getting Oberlin College and the city of Oberlin on board to protest the pipeline.

The details that may inspire the community to act are much more grim and consequently far harder to ignore. First, this pipe-

line will be dug right through the town of Oberlin, certainly within four miles of the College and very likely through the backyards of some Oberlin residents. It will also pass extremely close to the Oberlin Reservoir and the Black River, from which the College gets its water. Though Spectra Energy may have modern technology, this in no way ensures accident prevention. Spectra is notorious for its clean air violations and pipeline leaks, foreshadowing a disturbing picture of the havoc this pipeline could wreak in the community.

Despite the alarming facts of the proposal, opponents of the pipeline face a number of challenges. As of now, Oberlin College is deeply dependent on natural gas, using the fuel as its primary energy source in the central heating plant. Though the College claims it will rely on natural gas only temporarily, as part of its transition from coal to renewable energy, it is nonetheless our current energy source.

Supporters of the proposal, too, may see such a massive project as an opportunity to boost the Oberlin economy by creating a handful of jobs designated for the construction and maintenance of this pipeline. While the city of Oberlin has passed a bill of rights that explicitly forbids hydraulic fracturing and pipeline construction in the town, Spectra has a reputation for proceeding in spite of such restrictions.

While supporters of the project will likely point to our dependence on natural gas as a justification for the pipeline, it’s worth noting that the line would transport a significant portion of that gas abroad.

Gas fracked in Ohio and sent to Canada, one of the pipeline’s destinations, will do little to promote American energy independence.

The proposal, furthermore, routes the pipeline directly through lower-income areas of Oberlin, areas where Spectra likely expects less opposition to its actions. If Spectra has any reasons for targeting areas in need of economic revitalization, it’s very unlikely that they include any desire to help these communities.

The urgency of the situation demands immediate action. Thankfully, opportunities for community engagement are fast approaching.

On Oct. 10 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. there will be a community potluck and conversation at Peace Community Church at 44 East Lorain Street.

The canvassing initiatives that Anti-Frack members will conduct this week will encourage community members to come and hear presentations and speak openly about the Nexus Pipeline. If successful, this event will mark the start of a community-wide conversation about fracking.

For anyone who is truly invested in this cause, I believe that attending these events is the best way to begin. Opinions are important, but unless they’re paired with meaningful action, they hold very little potential to bring about change. When a college such as Oberlin, that is both opinionated and active, is presented with a dilemma like this one, the prospects for effective change are real and exciting. When I heard about the pipeline, I was sure that it wouldn’t happen. I hope that I will remain as confident after the community potluck.

Ebola Deaths Warrant Awareness, Not Fear Anah Soble Contributing Writer When crises occur, public reactions — no matter the ideological leanings — are often completely misguided.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Sept.

30 that a patient in isolation in a Dallas hospital contracted the Ebola virus while traveling in Liberia. The agency is keeping tabs on everyone who came into contact with the individual, but it is unlikely that anyone is at risk.

Many people, whether driven by ignorance or by lack of anything better to do, have taken their misguided fears about the disease to Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. If anyone has had an opinion on the terrifying Ebola outbreak, you can bet that it has been shared. I have seen social media posts featuring all kinds of outlandish opinions: that this is all President Obama’s fault (you may well ask how); that this is “the end of times”; or that everyone needs to travel by bubble suit in order to avoid bodily contact (which, frankly, just sounds fun to me).

I’ve also seen many more posts taking a more rational approach: “Stop talking about a disease that you’re never going to contract.” I have heard variants of this opinion

expressed by many of my friends.

In all honesty, I have the same thoughts.

Most people, most Oberlin students included, realize that we are really at no risk. As long as no one comes in contact with Ebola-ridden corpses or with the bodily fluids of someone showing symptoms, there is really no danger that the disease will spread. It is highly unlikely, in other words, that Ebola is going to reach Oberlin anytime soon. We can continue to worry about influenza — get your flu vaccine over fall break! — and the horrible “Oberlin plague” that seems to be ravaging the student body instead.

So, we can just forget about Ebola, right?

Wrong. People are still dying from Ebola — just not here. The disease has spread into an international outbreak in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone (and, though the threat there is more localized, Nigeria). The World Health Organization, now classifying the outbreak as an epidemic, reports that over 5,300 cases of the disease have been diagnosed, with over 2,600 deaths occurring since March, when the outbreak was first reported. These cases represent a larger outbreak of the disease than ever before — greater even than the initial 1976 outbreak of the disease.

The disease is taking a massive toll, causing large numbers of people to die horrific deaths, and still no cure has still been found. Even after a vaccine reached trial stage, further delays have prevented its usage. The number of new cases is now said to be doubling every three weeks.

Ebola is simply not something to lightly brush aside.

If the virus continues to spread at the same rate, according to projections by the CDC, there will be over 500,000 cases cases by the end of January. The CDC and international agencies are doing what they can, but because the virus is now so widespread, it is also evolving rapidly. It is possible that the virus will adapt to spread more quickly. While it is likely that a vaccine will be available before the epidemic grows out of hand, this issue is still an international concern that deserves the global public’s attention.

Saying, “It doesn’t affect me,” is never a valid excuse for ignoring a problem as great as Ebola. Support research to develop a vaccine and cure. Educate your friends and acquaintances about the issue rather than telling them to stop talking about it. And above all, whatever your perspective may be, see Ebola for what it is: an epidemic that’s killing massive numbers of people.

Kiley Petersen Staff Writer In what Vanity Fair hailed as a “game-changing” speech, actress Emma Watson, appointed a U.N. women goodwill ambassador in July, addressed the U.N. in New York on Sept. 21 to launch a campaign called HeForShe. HeForShe extends a “formal invitation” for male involvement in eliminating gender inequality and sexism. This “formal invitation” worries me as it brings up complications of allyship and false equivalency.

I agree with a lot of Watson’s speech. She spoke honestly about her experiences with sexism as a child and as a young adult, from being called bossy at age 8 to being sexualized by the media at age 14. She eloquently defined feminism as “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.”

Watson believes in the theory of the “political, economic and social equality of the sexes,” similar to the Beyoncé-approved soundbite sampled from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk “We Should All Be Feminists.”

Women should be feminists.

Men should be feminists. Nonbinary and gender nonconforming people should be feminists. And it’s not just about saying you’re a feminist and believing in the “agenda”: Feminism is a political movement that requires visibility in the media, political action and social change. So, while I’m uncomfortable with the HeForShe campaign because of its focus on men’s issues within feminism, I am grateful that its popularity on Twitter and Facebook has called attention to feminist issues.

I also appreciated that Watson spoke about a gender spectrum, however briefly, calling attention to the fact that the gender binary is an outdated and incorrect social construct.

“It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum, not as two opposing sets of ideals,” she said. For this one brief sentence, men and women were not placed into two boxes of masculine and feminine, almost leading me to think she would mention nonbinary individuals or trans people.

Then, around six minutes into her address, Watson made a statement that made me feel uncomfortable: “Men — I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue, too.” After that sentence, I quickly grew uneasy about the aims of the HeForShe movement.

I have two main problems with Watson’s speech. The first is that it brings up problems with allyship and men’s role in feminism. In a joke that’s been making the rounds on the internet, imagine what your reaction would be to the following slogans: “White For POC,” “Cis For Trans” and “Abled For Disabled.”

It’s unsettling. Conversations about inequalities and axes of power should not be centered on the oppressive group. The “feminism helps men too” and “gender inequality harms boys” mantras equate the feminism movement with the mindset of “I, a man, should only care about this because it directly affects me.”

More damaging quotes surface toward the end of Watson’s speech. “I want men to take up this mantle,” she said, “so their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice, but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too.” This approach becomes dangerous, shifting the narrative away from the question of why women shouldn’t be systematically abused every day.

When the answer to this question is, “She shouldn’t be abused, raped or discriminated against because she’s my sister/mother/daughter,” the approach becomes deeply problematic.

The reason a person should not be abused or treated unjustly is simple: They are a person, so they should be treated fairly. It does no good to approach feminism by saying things like “I wouldn’t want this to happen to my mother,” as this approach holds that a woman’s only claim to safety and justice is defined by her relationship to men. The message this response conveys, in other words, is that “if this abuse isn’t happening to my daughter, it’s happening to some other girl.”

That other girl doesn’t deserve the injustice, either.

My second issue with Watson’s U.N. address is that it creates a false equivalence between men’s issues and women’s issues. I, as a feminist, obviously do care about men. Men are awesome. Unfortunately, there are many harmful notions about masculinity, especially for young adult males, where strong masculinity is the ideal and being called feminine is seen as the ultimate insult.

But I think it’s also true that there is a substantial difference between men’s struggles with gender roles and masculinity and the constant degradation and abuse women face every day in every country and culture.

Watson’s speech has been highly praised by the media and has resulted in a slew of male celebrities posting photos with the hashtag #HeForShe. A lot of mainstream feminist blogs and activists, too, have given Watson their stamp of approval. This attention, though, highlights the difficulties and disagreements within the feminist movement as a whole. Oftentimes, in today’s mainstream feminist discourse, we place too much emphasis on a feminism that easily caters to the white, cis, straight female. Feminism needs a lot of things, including more intersectionality, more queer voices, more marginalized voices and more discussion about gender politics and the harmful and inaccurate masculine-feminine binary.

Watson is on the right track. Her ideas are valid, and issues with masculinity and male power aren’t talked about as often as, for example, violence against women is. However, the HeForShe campaign is not the way to go about changing the discourse because it brings in flawed notions of allyship, encourages male control of feminist discourse, and falsely equates men’s and women’s issues.

Feminism needs more discussion about issues of masculinity, and it does need more male allies, but HeForShe is the wrong way to achieve these goals.

German

Number of which also have other majors

Current Nu

Russian

* See note.

Wr itin g

P Econom ic

o

Ge

Hi s

C A ST

* Ratios reflect the number of classes listed in course catalog compared to number of majors in the department.

s t or y Hi

al

Music

Russian and East European Studies Independent Major

Art

Cre ati ve

His tor y

ce ien

Ne uro sc

En glis h

gy Psy ch

ci e nc e er S

Co mp ut

Ec o nom ics

Pol itic s

olo

Ge rm

La w es di

tu ra

Studi

re Dance

Smallest Majors

Africana Studies

n

tudies

Greek Language and Literature

aS

1

S na t u

a ni c

Ind an ivid Arc ual ha e M ajo log r ica l St udi es F r Law enc h and Soc Ge iety rm an S tud His ies pan ic S tud ies Co mp ara Da nc e tive Lit Lat e r in L Cre atu re ati ang ve ua g W riti ea ng nd Lit era tur e

T s ia n

2

Russian and East European Studies

ive Lite rat

3

People: 3 Individual Major 4 German 4 Russian and East European Studies 4 Greek Language and Literature 4 Visual Arts 7 Latin Language and Literature

Studi

es

4

0

h

5

Performance

g

Largest Classes to Student Ratio

t

6

Psy ch

Ar

CALENDAR

TIMARA Musicology Jazz Studies Composition

y

Studio

Relig io

37% of the Conservatory is double-degree.

76% of TIMARA majors are double-degree.

Undeclared

Conservatory Majors Broken Down

Cine m

Together, Conservatory students in the Voice and Piano concentrations make up 39% of all Performance majors and 30% of the Conservatory.

L a ti n

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Ratios reflect the number of faculty listed on departmental website compared to number of students in the major.

G SF S

dies

Computer Science

st Asian

A f ri c a

Economics

Ea

g lo

y og ol

Psychology

Stu

The Politics major has the most classes listed in the course catalog (66), followed

by History (60), Africana Studies (50) and English (48).

R us

Biology

es

H is p

Neuroscience

& Soci

Comp a

Politics

Overall, 42% of Oberlin students in the College have declared more than one major.

y

thropolo n A

Frenc

Creative Writing

tin

Cinema Studies

ce

(Bio)Chemistry

r to

Archaeological Studies

gy

Geology

ater he

s

ety

Sociology

Classical Civilization Visual Arts

Politics

0

a ti v e W ri

20

Latin American Studies

Percent of majors that also have other majors

Cre

40

Da n

496 Social Science Majors

eclared Major s

Top Ten Multiple Majors

521 Humanities Majors

60

Faculty Ratio

e

mb e

fD

544 Natural Science Majors

80

Largest Student to

t ema ics h t

ro

Bio En log vir y onm ent al S tud ies

0

100

En g

Greek Language and Literature

s i cs

h lis

20

y

40

ci o S o l og

hy

roscie nc Neu

y

German Studies

Ma

ce en ci

P

hiloso

Biol og y

istry

Number of total majors

ph

60

vironmenta lS

ies

80

24% 21% 8%

En

d tu

Humanities Social Sciences Natural Sciences

Light circles correspond to the number of people in that major who have also declared another major.

Computer S

Percentage of faculty that are visiting:

c he m ry ist

Ten Most Popular Majors

100

Circle size corresponds to the number of people who have declared that major.

Che m

Majors by Numbers

Bio

The College declined the Review’s request for departmental budget information as a part of this feature.

Major numbers accurate as of Sept. 24, 2014 This Week Editor: Hazel Galloway

2014 Green Energy Ohio – Oberlin Tour Adam Joseph Lewis Center

Filipinx American Heritage Banquet Price House Lounge

Oktoberfest German House Lounge

Tami Tango Trio The Cat in the Cream

Winter Term Information Session Wilder Hall, Main Lounge

4,000 Miles Little Theater

Lab Crawl 2014 Science Center

On the first Saturday of October, the statewide green energy tour is organizing open houses and tours of green buildings in nine different cities. After a 9 a.m. tour of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, the day will continue with tours of the LEED Gold Certified Oberlin Fire Department and a number of local green or positive energy residences. Register and see the full schedule online. Saturday, Oct. 4 starting at 9 a.m.

This year’s annual banquet hosted by the Filipinx American Students Association will feature a panel discussion by Filipina women and mothers focusing on diasporic motherhood, Filipina American women’s experiences in academia and the workforce, and Filipinx culture and tradition in the context of the U.S. A full banquet of traditional food is open to all based on a sliding scale donation. Saturday, Oct. 4 from 5–8 p.m.

In honor of the well-known traditional German festival, the German department is sponsoring a free celebration featuring traditional food, non-alcoholic beer and Bavarian and Brazilian music in the German House lounge. Saturday, Oct. 4 from 8–11 p.m.

This energetic ensemble of flute, guitar and piano, named after its highly acclaimed flautist and accompanied by dancers, will bring a night of Argentinian tango to northeast Ohio. The group will stay on to teach a tango lesson followed by two hours of dancing on Monday night from 9:45–11:45 in Clonick Hall.

Sunday, Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Although January can feel like a lifetime away, this presentation will provide an overview of the most important guidelines for a successful Winter Term project. Faculty and returning students will be on hand to share their experiences and help workshop ideas.

Monday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.

American playwright Amy Herzog’s dramatic comedy involves the unlikely companionship between the 21-year-old Leo and his spirited grandmother as they make their way through today’s world. This studentdirected production runs for three consecutive nights in the intimate space of the Little Theater. Thursday, Oct. 9, Friday, Oct. 10 and Saturday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m.

The third annual Lab Crawl returns this week for an interactive open house showcasing faculty research labs across the STEM disciplines. Participants earn stickers for visiting campus labs from the Science Center to the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which they can redeem for pizza and a raffle at the end of the Crawl. The event is open to all students interested in learning more about research taking place at Oberlin.

Friday, Oct. 10 from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

German

Number of which also have other majors

Current Nu

Russian

* See note.

Wr itin g

P Econom ic

o

Ge

Hi s

C A ST

* Ratios reflect the number of classes listed in course catalog compared to number of majors in the department.

s t or y Hi

al

Music

Russian and East European Studies Independent Major

Art

Cre ati ve

His tor y

ce ien

Ne uro sc

En glis h

gy Psy ch

ci e nc e er S

Co mp ut

Ec o nom ics

Pol itic s

olo

Ge rm

La w es di

tu ra

Studi

re Dance

Smallest Majors

Africana Studies

n

tudies

Greek Language and Literature

aS

1

S na t u

a ni c

Ind an ivid Arc ual ha e M ajo log r ica l St udi es F r Law enc h and Soc Ge iety rm an S tud His ies pan ic S tud ies Co mp ara Da nc e tive Lit Lat e r in L Cre atu re ati ang ve ua g W riti ea ng nd Lit era tur e

T s ia n

2

Russian and East European Studies

ive Lite rat

3

People: 3 Individual Major 4 German 4 Russian and East European Studies 4 Greek Language and Literature 4 Visual Arts 7 Latin Language and Literature

Studi

es

4

0

h

5

Performance

g

Largest Classes to Student Ratio

t

6

Psy ch

Ar

CALENDAR

TIMARA Musicology Jazz Studies Composition

y

Studio

Relig io

37% of the Conservatory is double-degree.

76% of TIMARA majors are double-degree.

Undeclared

Conservatory Majors Broken Down

Cine m

Together, Conservatory students in the Voice and Piano concentrations make up 39% of all Performance majors and 30% of the Conservatory.

L a ti n

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Ratios reflect the number of faculty listed on departmental website compared to number of students in the major.

G SF S

dies

Computer Science

st Asian

A f ri c a

Economics

Ea

g lo

y og ol

Psychology

Stu

The Politics major has the most classes listed in the course catalog (66), followed

by History (60), Africana Studies (50) and English (48).

R us

Biology

es

H is p

Neuroscience

& Soci

Comp a

Politics

Overall, 42% of Oberlin students in the College have declared more than one major.

y

thropolo n A

Frenc

Creative Writing

tin

Cinema Studies

ce

(Bio)Chemistry

r to

Archaeological Studies

gy

Geology

ater he

s

ety

Sociology

Classical Civilization Visual Arts

Politics

0

a ti v e W ri

20

Latin American Studies

Percent of majors that also have other majors

Cre

40

Da n

496 Social Science Majors

eclared Major s

Top Ten Multiple Majors

521 Humanities Majors

60

Faculty Ratio

e

mb e

fD

544 Natural Science Majors

80

Largest Student to

t ema ics h t

ro

Bio En log vir y onm ent al S tud ies

0

100

En g

Greek Language and Literature

s i cs

h lis

20

y

40

ci o S o l og

hy

roscie nc Neu

y

German Studies

Ma

ce en ci

P

hiloso

Biol og y

istry

Number of total majors

ph

60

vironmenta lS

ies

80

24% 21% 8%

En

d tu

Humanities Social Sciences Natural Sciences

Light circles correspond to the number of people in that major who have also declared another major.

Computer S

Percentage of faculty that are visiting:

c he m ry ist

Ten Most Popular Majors

100

Circle size corresponds to the number of people who have declared that major.

Che m

Majors by Numbers

Bio

The College declined the Review’s request for departmental budget information as a part of this feature.

Major numbers accurate as of Sept. 24, 2014 This Week Editor: Hazel Galloway

2014 Green Energy Ohio – Oberlin Tour Adam Joseph Lewis Center

Filipinx American Heritage Banquet Price House Lounge

Oktoberfest German House Lounge

Tami Tango Trio The Cat in the Cream

Winter Term Information Session Wilder Hall, Main Lounge

4,000 Miles Little Theater

Lab Crawl 2014 Science Center

On the first Saturday of October, the statewide green energy tour is organizing open houses and tours of green buildings in nine different cities. After a 9 a.m. tour of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, the day will continue with tours of the LEED Gold Certified Oberlin Fire Department and a number of local green or positive energy residences. Register and see the full schedule online. Saturday, Oct. 4 starting at 9 a.m.

This year’s annual banquet hosted by the Filipinx American Students Association will feature a panel discussion by Filipina women and mothers focusing on diasporic motherhood, Filipina American women’s experiences in academia and the workforce, and Filipinx culture and tradition in the context of the U.S. A full banquet of traditional food is open to all based on a sliding scale donation. Saturday, Oct. 4 from 5–8 p.m.

In honor of the well-known traditional German festival, the German department is sponsoring a free celebration featuring traditional food, non-alcoholic beer and Bavarian and Brazilian music in the German House lounge. Saturday, Oct. 4 from 8–11 p.m.

This energetic ensemble of flute, guitar and piano, named after its highly acclaimed flautist and accompanied by dancers, will bring a night of Argentinian tango to northeast Ohio. The group will stay on to teach a tango lesson followed by two hours of dancing on Monday night from 9:45–11:45 in Clonick Hall.

Sunday, Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Although January can feel like a lifetime away, this presentation will provide an overview of the most important guidelines for a successful Winter Term project. Faculty and returning students will be on hand to share their experiences and help workshop ideas.

Monday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.

American playwright Amy Herzog’s dramatic comedy involves the unlikely companionship between the 21-year-old Leo and his spirited grandmother as they make their way through today’s world. This studentdirected production runs for three consecutive nights in the intimate space of the Little Theater. Thursday, Oct. 9, Friday, Oct. 10 and Saturday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m.

The third annual Lab Crawl returns this week for an interactive open house showcasing faculty research labs across the STEM disciplines. Participants earn stickers for visiting campus labs from the Science Center to the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which they can redeem for pizza and a raffle at the end of the Crawl. The event is open to all students interested in learning more about research taking place at Oberlin.

Friday, Oct. 10 from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

October 3, 2014

Art Libary Displays Selections from Vast Mail Art Collection Tristan Cimini At the center of the Clarence Ward Art Library, there is a small display case that houses 10 highly detailed postcards embellished with text and imagery — an eclectic sample of Oberlin’s vast collection of mail art.

Each piece is extremely personalized, some scattered with stamps, some with script, some with ink and paint, and most containing a combination of the three.

The mail art movement dates back to the late 1950s and was conceived out of Marcel Duchamp’s ideas of art as a challenge to pre20th century artistic conventions. Mail art provides a means of making art accessible by using everyday objects such as postcards, paper, recyclable materials and stamps. Because mail art is only considered to be art once it is dispatched from a sender, the circulation of mail art relies on interpersonal communication between artists to exchange ideas. Thus, participating artists are able to form an interconnected network to circumvent tra-

ditional distribution of art.

College senior Jay Rosen, the first person to view many of the pieces he archived during the summer, said that a lot of the pieces of mail art he first encountered appeared to be untouched. Initially, when his job as a summer archivist started, there weren’t any plans to put together a mail art case.

However, he kept tabs on all of the art he stumbled upon and liked. Eventually, a few pieces he selected received enough attention to be placed on display.

“It’s probably the most accessible and democratic global art movement, yet no one really knows about it,” Rosen said. “There are no galleries, there is no hierarchy of submitting your work and getting rejected, and you don’t have to pay, besides postage. It’s just so open and available to anyone.”

Oberlin College’s extensive collection includes over 25,000 works of mail art by approximately 1,800 artists from around the world. During the summers of the 1960s, Oberlin’s Art Librarian Ellen Johnson would travel to New

Next Wave of Editors Revitalizes OCC Liam McLean Staff Writer The Oberlin Comics Collective, a graphic arts collaborative and small press on campus, is expanding operations through an unconventional device: the risograph. This bulky print duplicator, developed in post-war Japan and marketed as a cheap and efficient alternative to the mainstream photocopier, has found niche appeal among contemporary artists and designers. For them, as for members of the OCC, its inexpensiveness represents control over their creative output and a DIY philosophy central to the collective’s identity.

“We self-publish,” said Ben Garbus, OCC member and College sophomore. “That just means producing something from scratch and distribut[ing] it, and that’s what I love about what we do.”

The risograph is essential to the renaissance that the 4-year-old organization is undergoing this year, which includes efforts to expand access to printing within the community, as well as a new zine subscription service.

In its earliest days, the OCC was distinguished by the “mega-zines” it releases each semester. These are non-selective compilations of comics submitted by students across campus. The OCC was also known for its “comic jams,” or the times devoted to drinking beer and playing drawing games, according to College senior Sky Kalfus, who joined the Collective as a first-year.

The laid-back nature of the organization has not changed, and, according to College junior Anne Buckwalter, the OCC is committed to being open to See OCC, page 13

York City to learn about new art movements, become friends with famous artists and acquire pieces for the College at affordable rates. She was the first person to bring mail art to Oberlin, eventually acquiring the collections of Harley Francis and Reid Wood, two local mail artists. In the spring of 2012, the Exhibition Initiative presented the first largescale display of selected pieces from the mail art collection and included a comprehensive historical narrative to explain the works. All of the school’s correspondence art has been cataloged so that it is physically protected yet students may still access it.

As Art Library Director Barbara Prior paged through one of the hundreds of folders of mail art that the library has spent the past decade cataloging, she said the tactile nature of the art is what draws viewers looking to experience it. “[Mail art is] a personal communication that you are invited to pick up and hold and experience. Mail art bridges that gap because it chooses a medium that is familiar

The Clarence Ward Art Library houses a display from the much larger collection of mail art archived at Oberlin. The full compilation was cataloged this summer and is available for public perusal.

Simeon Deutsch

and intimate and that people are immediately drawn to,” Prior said.

Although familiarity is an aspect of this art form’s approachability, Prior said that it is easy to feel like a voyeur while looking at the collection. “The problem with a mail art piece or a corpus of mail art is that since it’s all personal communication, the meanings and interpretations of the piece are very contextual and sometimes very per-

sonal as well,” Prior said.

There are so many messages that are conveyed through mail art, but all conclusions drawn about the meaning can remain uncertain.

The display case contains a small portion of Oberlin’s mail art, but there are many other ways to explore the collection.

Scans of the full collection can be accessed online under the Special Collections section of the Art Library’s

main page. The works are also available in hard copy by appointment. This year, there will be a Winter Term course offered that focuses on mail art. In the spring, there will be a larger exhibit of mail art in Mudd library, as well as a lecture

by Vanessa K. Davidson, curator of Latin American Art at the Phoenix Art Museum, that will focus on decoding political and cultural histories through mail art.

Hundred Waters Electrifies Crowd at ’Sco Sam Winward Digital folk band Hundred Waters dominated last Thursday night’s double booking at the ’Sco, outshining Mount Eerie, the lo-fi indie band led by guitarist Phil Elverum. The poster advertising the event suggested that Mount Eerie would be the main event, though the band’s performance served as an unmemorable opening act to the superior Hundred Waters show.

Phil Elverum, Mount Eerie’s frontman and a legend in the lo-fi scene, strode onstage alongside his unassuming guitarist before a handful of observers. With Elverum’s half-closed eyes gazing downwards, the front row of the audience stood motionless, seemingly hypnotized by his monotonous plucking of guitar strings.

The duo’s music lacked any sense of dynamics, rarely deviating from a single chord as Elverum toyed with vocal melodies. Elverum’s pleasant yet subdued vocal tones bled into his sustained instrumentals; his songs sounded like they were running on a treadmill. Many songs ended unexpectedly, and the audience, seemingly unimpressed with the performance, took to chatting amid the band’s quiet droning.

Elverum, taking offense to the crowd’s indifference, said, “If you’re having a convo, just chill for three songs.” Silence ensued, as if a teacher had just reprimanded their stu-

dents for having a side conversation.

Irrationally annoyed, Elverum tweeted the following day: “College: fake castles for children to stink up.”

It appears that Eerie’s subsequent concert at Kenyon College featured a similar flop, after which Elverum tweeted: “Tomorrow will be a big final Mount Eerie concert, one of many retirements. Chilling for a while.” At least Elverum seemed to realize the apparent need for change.

Hundred Waters came to Oberlin on the heels of its second wellreceived LP, The Moon Rang Like a Bell, released on Skrillex’s OWSLA record label. A somewhat less poppy version of the Canadian electronic music duo Purity Ring, Hundred Waters’s sound is considered “digital folk.”

In their first song, the band sampled frontwoman Nicole Miglis’s atmospheric voice repeating the words “I wish you” in a continuous stream of sound. Underneath the layer of sound containing her voice, the synth triggered muffled explosion-like hits, transitioning from 16th-note triplets to half notes, which exemplified the group’s endless commitment to syncopation.

The band’s tight rhythmic instrumentals thatched a pillow-like bed on which to lay Miglis’s vocal track.

The song seamlessly transitioned from Miglis’s vocal sample to her live voice when she finally finished her thought: “I wish you would see

what I see.” The introduction of live vocals launched the band’s drummer, Zach Tetreault, into a stopstart rhythm somehow conducive to the song’s flow.

Tetreault has perfected making nontraditional rhythmic patterns feel accessible; his successful blending of electronic and acoustic sounds allowed for a range of timbres rarely heard in today’s live performances.

The band’s visuals, which included a colorful light show, were synced with the audible component; the lighting effects almost functioned as an additional instrument, accentuating the growth and contraction of rhythmic and melodic themes.

The band embarked upon a demanding two-month world tour of Europe and the U.S. days after its ’Sco appearance, which meant that Obies likely received the results of a highly practiced routine. The crowd found itself enraptured by an extravagant light show Hundred Waters would soon be showing off in European clubs and at double bookings in New York City and Washington, D.C.; one might only imagine what Mount Eerie’s performers were thinking as they watched Hundred Waters play its set.

Maybe Mount Eerie’s own set would have gone over better had its show been booked individually at the Cat in the Cream, but Hundred Waters was the night’s clear winner.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

Page 11

Jazz, Classical Faculty Perform on Refurbished Piano Aviva Blonder Staff Writer Conservatory faculty unveiled a newly refurbished Steinway piano to the public on Sunday afternoon for the inaugural concert of the Music at the Meeting House series. Members of the Oberlin community gathered in the historical First Church sanctuary to enjoy the incredible versatility of the program, which included everything from stately waltzes to operatic arias to jazz

standards.

Sigrun Heinzelmann, associate professor of Music Theory, opened the concert with Maurice Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. Coincidentally, Ravel wrote the pieces in 1911, which is the same year that the featured Steinway was built. Before launching into her interpretation, Heinzelmann explained that the suite is composed of eight waltzes inspired by the work of Franz Schubert. Ravel’s piece includes dissonances meant to heighten

the dramatic effect of the music.

The 1911 debut of this work was performed anonymously, and most critics, not realizing whose music they were criticizing, gave the waltzes an extremely negative review. However, despite its initially rocky reception, the piece was orchestrated as the ballet Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs the following year.

Heinzelmann’s interpretation highlighted the evocative quality of the waltzes. From the first notes, the music called a

traditional ballroom scene to mind through its graceful, steady melodies. The piece began with an energetic and powerful motif; Heinzelmann’s fingers danced across the keys with astounding agility, and her technique never once slipped. As the music frequency of notes diminished, the dissonances became increasingly pronounced, illustrating the awkward romance depicted in the ballet version. Heinzelmann’s potent dynamics gave power to the slower segments and enabled

a gradual transition from spry and light to forceful and frantic and then back again. The final waltz was an epilogue into which the musical gestures from the former waltzes faded in and out; Heinzelmann characterized this conclusion as “dreamlike” in her introductory notes. Quiet, hesitant melodies alternated with assertive gestures, until at last the music wound to a finish, perfect silence enveloping the room See Musicians, page 13

Students Organize Informal Shakespeare Performance Maggie Bussard An exciting experiment in directing and acting occurred on Saturday when students met in Wilder Bowl for an open reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

College sophomores Jay Shapiro and Chris Puglisi proposed to direct a version of the Shakespeare play that was auditionand rehearsal-free, with a single time commitment at the conclusion of last semester.

According to Shapiro, the two directors were inspired by writer and director Joss Whedon, who would host brunches with his actor friends during which they would read the works of Shakespeare. Ultimately, these impromptu

performances manifested in his 2012 film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Like Whedon, Shapiro and Puglisi wanted to create a relaxed environment where people could enjoy Shakespeare without the anxiety of a staged performance. The students wanted to use an informal setting to promote the notion that Shakespeare is still relevant today.

“The style of the event was not the most refined thing [and let] people go with their gut,” Shapiro said.

The play was presented round-robin style, with audience members volunteering to play a part for a particular scene and switching characters as the afternoon progressed.

The theater-in-the-round

A group of actors congregate in a round robin for an informal, spontaneous performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. College sophomores Jay Shapiro and Chris Puglisi organized the experimental outdoor reading that took place Saturday.

Bryan Rubin

style created a communal feeling but also posed difficulties for staging that a proscenium style performance would not have had; blocking theater for an audience on all sides can be a difficult task, re-

quiring specificity that can only arise from a rehearsal. Jumping into the circle and having to read a new script while simultaneously making themselves accessible to the audience was a challenging pursuit

for the actors. Staging was mainly an issue in scenes with many actors, but in more intimate scenes there was room to explore space and varied staging.

The line “Masters, spread yourselves” appeared to

address both the characters and the actors in a particularly meta moment.

Because of the outdoor setting, the event attracted curious passersby to both See Actors, page 12

On the Record with Conductor Raphael Jiménez and Composer Ricardo Lorenz Raphael Jiménez conducted the Oberlin Orchestra for the world premiere of composer Ricardo Lorenz’s “Olokun’s Awakening” in the Orchestra’s first concert of the semester last Saturday. The composer arrived on campus several days before the premiere to collaborate with Jiménez and coach the Orchestra in its final rehearsals. The Review spoke with both musicians about their collaborative history and the creative process behind “Olokun’s Awakening.”

How did you two get your start in music?

Ricardo Lorenz: I started in a rock band in Caracas, in Venezuela where I’m from. It was a sort

of fusion rock band with a bunch of friends. Eventually all of us ended up in conservatory there.

Raphael Jiménez: I actually started in a conservatory in Caracas, and very soon I was recruited to join the El Sistema program.

do to come visit. We performed one of his pieces, and he gave a lecture so good that the university recruited him and he ended up working at Michigan State University. We worked together for many years until I came to Oberlin.

Where did you first meet?

RJ: We met in Caracas where I was assistant conductor of the Caracas Sinfonietta and they were premiering a piece by Lorenz. That’s where we met, but we didn’t make contact again until later on when I was working at Michigan State University.

I was running a Latin American music series, and I invited Ricar-

How did this collaboration start?

RL: Raphael, who started as a ballet conductor, once commented that there are no Latin American ballets in the standard repertoire. So I decided to write one, and I came across this legend that originated in Cuba.

Right away I thought that it must be made into an opera or a ballet,

Ricardo Lorenz (left) and Raphael Jiménez spoke with the Review about their collaborative efforts to bring the legend of Chacumbele to life in the Oberlin Orchestra’s first concert of the semester.

and that’s how it all got started.

The story is really interesting because it combines typical human themes like jealousy and romance with some of the worst calamities of the 20th century like racism and fascism, so it’s just the perfect story. Since finding the story, I’ve collaborated with Raphael to make sure the story works well and then also to write a first scene to have something we can pitch for future sponsors for the larger plan.

How do you approach the score for a piece that is about to be performed for the first time?

RJ: It’s not different from any other piece. The first thing is to get a good idea of the general picture and what the piece looks like. I try to distance myself and have an eagle vision of the work as a whole, because, to me, the structure and the shape of a piece are essential. Once I know how to navigate the piece, I go deeper and try to understand all the parts that make up the structure of the piece.

The difference here is that I have a great relationship with Ricardo, and so we can talk about it. I can ask him exactly what he wants, and we can really collaborate on the piece. I try very hard to get close with new composers so we can have that sort of productive relationship. Sometimes

it’s easy to do, and sometimes it’s more difficult, but the ultimate goal is to bring the piece alive, so it’s really no different from any other score.

When you’re writing a new piece, what influences your decisions and the music?

RL: First, it comes from my heritage. I come from a culture where rhythm is essential for our understanding of music, so we communicate through rhythm in many ways. For me though, that’s never enough, and I need to have some sort of extra-musical inspiration. There’s always a story in the news or something happening in the world that gives me a real reason to sit down for so long and write a piece of music.

RJ: I can name two pieces by Ricardo right away; one is called “El Muro” and it was right at a time where there was a lot of discussion about building a wall at the border of Mexico and the U.S. The other is “Perfiles Sospechosos,” which is about the time after 9/11 when many people were suspicious of anybody that looked like they were from the Middle East.

RL: Yes, so these are examples of pieces. I have to have something of substance that connects me in a human way to something See Conductor, page 13

Arts

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Actors Participate in RoundRobin Shakespeare Reading Continued from page 11 watch and participate in the activity. People were free to come and go as they pleased, keeping the cast fresh and the audience entertained.

Puglisi said being outside created a “static environment [with a] Shakespeare in the Park vibe.”

The reading began with a warm up dance to Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.” While the crowd was modest in size, there were still plenty of participants to dive into the first scene of the play.

For each scene, the directors provided a few basic instructions and then let the actors take over. The play begins with a fight about loyalty and love, so the actors were instructed to act like they were in a Mean Girlsstyle catfight. The two young lovers, Hermia and Lysander, were told to act like horny teenagers.

The directors wanted participants to have fun engaging with the text and purposefully gave open-ended instructions in order to give actors free rein over interpretation. College firstyear Drew Styles said that participating in A Midsummer Night’s Dream was “so much more relaxed” than his previous Shakespeare experiences.

After a while, the directors added more exciting layers into their instructions as the majority of the participants, appeared very comfortable

with the Shakespearean text.

In one scene, actors were asked to play with power dynamics, while others were asked to read a single line in multiple ways in order to glean different interpretations. At one point, the cast took a moment to discuss how the character Helena should be played so that she would come across as not purely desperate but also assertive.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The directors wanted participants to have fun engaging with the text and purposefully gave open-ended instructions in order to give actors free rein over interpretation.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– After an audience member made a suggestion, the whole crowd joined in singing Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” in the next scene to sing the character Titania to sleep.

The actors portraying Hermia and Lysander were later told to discuss sex in a song that is suitable for 5-year-olds.

At one point when the four lovers are fighting and the men are under the spell of “love juice,” the actors playing Lysander and Demetrius were

asked periodically to switch roles, and the same direction was given to the actors playing Helena and Hermia.

Later, those actors swapped with the other two actors, creating an artistic chaos that echoed the emotional pandemonium of the scene.

When the crowd was small, it was hard to get a variety of actors, as participants did not want to perform multiple times. A larger audience would have been beneficial at these awkward moments. However, the intimate setting allowed the actors to experiment with different acting styles.

Styles said he played Duke Theseus a year ago in high school, but this experience let him play the roles he had always wanted to try.

“The people who came were so excited about Shakespeare,” Puglisi said.

Shapiro said he concurred: “It was great seeing people dive in.”

Puglisi and Shapiro began a mailing list at Saturday’s reading and hope to build a base of people for new projects. They also discussed hosting an indoor round-robin reading this semester when the weather gets colder,or hosting a randomly pre-cast show from the mailing list.

The students hope to draw participants who are enthusiastic about Shakespeare and eager to participate, but do not have room in their schedule for a significant commitment of time.

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

The Equalizer Entertaining if Conventional Clark Sacktor Columnist Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer avoids mediocrity through stylized cinematography despite being an archetypal action film. The movie, which is playing at the Apollo Theatre until Oct. 9, is the second of Fuqua’s productions to star actor Denzel Washington and is based on a 1980s TV show of the same name. While certainly a step down from their previous collaboration, Training Day, the film is not devoid of entertaining moments.

The film begins with a meticulous home improvement depot employee named Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), also known as Bobby, whose mysterious past is gradually revealed over the duration of the movie. Bobby’s nightly routine of reading literary classics serves as heavy-handed foreshadowing of the plot.

During one of his nighttime readings, Bobby meets the promising yet troubled prostitute Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz). While her character is initially interesting, Teri’s onscreen presence ultimately diminishes. When Bobby hears that she has been brutally beaten by her pimp, he embarks upon a revenge mission, bringing his character and the audience face-to-face with corrupt police officers and Russian mobsters.

In a subplot, Bobby helps his determined but ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Bobby’s nightly routine of reading literary classics serves as heavyhanded foreshadowing of the plot.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Feature Photo: McGill Performs in Kulas

Anthony McGill (right), the principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic, visited Oberlin this week to give a master class and recital. With pianist Michael McHale, McGill performed several pieces, including Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Sonata for Clarinet E-Flat Major in Kulas Recital Hall Thursday night.

McGill is recognized for his collaboration with violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Gabriela Montero in the quartet’s landmark performance and recording of American composer John Williams’s “Air and Simple Gifts” during President Obama’s 2009 inauguration. A Chicago native, McGill attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA, and is currently on faculty at the Juilliard School, the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the Manhattan School of Music. Before joining the New York Philharmonic McGill served for 10 years as the principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Text by Jeremy Reynolds, Arts editor Photo by Yu Yue

misguided co-worker, Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis), train to become a security officer. This subplot emphasizes Bobby’s character as the kindhearted protagonist.

Teddy (Marton Csokas), a Russian hitman charged with taking Bobby down after his initial run-in with the mob, is creepy, brutal and intimidating. However, Csokas’s performance sometimes seems over-the-top, and his delivery often feels cartoonish.

The action involving Teddy builds slowly, with no excitement during the first 40 minutes or so, but it is well worth the wait.

In some action scenes, the camera follows Bobby’s eyes in slow motion while he examines his surroundings. The action then dramatically intensifies as the depot employee brutally takes out his enemies. These scenes are reminiscent of the Bourne film trilogy, and the slow motion camerawork is similar to that of the recent Sherlock Holmes franchise. Despite its lack of originality, the action does not disappoint.

Fuqua’s use of typical action film conventions is frustrating. Washington is repeatedly seen walking away slowly from explosions. Key action scenes seem to take place offscreen, and the audience is left confused. Bobby also appears to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time for the purposes of the story. The film also suffers from a bloated runtime of over two hours and could have benefited from the omission of unnecessary scenes.

If you are willing to accept some fluff, then The Equalizer probably will not leave you unsatisfied. The mildly entertaining action, in addition to Washington’s presence onscreen, is enough to warrant a viewing on a slow weekend in Oberlin.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

Page 13

Conductor, Composer Share Musical Perspectives Continued from page 11 as abstract as music.

How about the connection for this piece, “Olokun’s Awakening”?

RL: It has many dimensions, that’s what I think is so rich about it and why it has so much potential. There are many different versions, and it’s become a popular saying in Cuba, “be careful or you’ll die like Chacumbele” which means be careful or you’ll get yourself in trouble because of something you did. [“Olokun’s Awakening” is the preview of the larger work, The Tales of Chacumbele.] It’s a sort of philosophical warning about being careful of your own mistakes. We’re trying to funnel all these different aspects into one dramatic piece.

RJ: The saying is basically saying “be careful not to dig your own grave.”

RL: We don’t even know where the story came from. I’ve interviewed people on the streets in Cuba, and everyone has their own story about how Chacumbele died.

What I realized by talking to all these people was that they almost reflect themselves into how Chacumbele might have died. This is fascinating to see, because it adds another psychological aspect to the story, and it shows just how many different directions the story can go.

On top of all this is the idea that he died because of destiny, but that isn’t good enough for drama. We need to know who caused all the tragedies that befall the characters, so we added mythology from the Afro-Cuban religion. We added the

idea that a deity [named Olokun] is concocting this whole thing just to fulfill a prophecy and so on. So now we have some mythology and a culprit, which makes it more interesting. So this first scene [the concert piece] is where we see to what extent Olokun is manipulating the main characters and we’re seeing this deity arise and show itself.

Where do you see this project and collaboration going?

RJ: Well, that would depend on the success of us pitching the project to possible sponsors and supporters. We hope that it ends as a ballet produced by a major company, but we’ll see. What’s important is that when you have such a fantastic idea, you have to just get it out there. So Ricar-

do is certainly going to continue to write the piece, whether it be in the form of a symphonic work but hopefully as a fully staged ballet.

RL: Exactly, it could end up that it’s just four symphonic scenes, just like you’re performing it today, but I really think it’s going to end up in a major ballet company. We have such a great story and a great collaboration, so there’s no reason why it can’t be pitched and supported by a major ballet company. Another possibility would be to turn it into an animated film, but the main goal is to have it choreographed and staged with a ballet company.

Interview by Colin Roshak Photos courtesy of Ricardo Lorenz and Raphael Jiménez

Musicians Perform Ravel, Waldron in Inaugural Concert Continued from page 11 upon the release of the final note.

Alexa Still, associate professor of Flute, and pianist Thomas Bandy, musical coordinator of opera productions, took the stage following Heinzelman’s compelling start to the concert.

They performed Aaron Copland’s 1971 Duo for Flute and Piano, which was one of the last works Copland composed during his prolific career. Still described the first movement as “wide-open Americana with spare harmonies,” while the final movement, conversely, combines the rambunctious mood of a hoedown with Stravinskyan and modernist melodic influences. Throughout the piece, the piano acted as a stable base for the more active flute lines, which fluctuated between wild successions of shrill high notes and flowing waves of melodies.

Maurice Ravel’s impression-

ism returned in the third work of the afternoon, “Don Quichotte à Dulcinée,” composed for a French film adaptation of the classic 17th-century novel Don Quixote. Timothy LeFebvre, associate professor of Singing, sang with a powerful voice that imbued every syllable with stirring emotion. The piece consisted of three distinct songs, “Chanson romanesque,” “Chanson épique” and “Chanson à boire” (translated respectively as “novelistic song,” “epic song,” and “drinking song”). The first was pleading, with lyrics that spoke of desperate love. LeFebvre conveyed the meaning of the French words clearly, though the program printed an English translation for those interested. The second song was a determined prayer, calling upon saints, angels and Mary to aid Don Quixote in his quest for a woman’s love. In the third and final song, Howsman brought a lighter, airier energy

to the piano part that contrasted with the pointedly assertive vocal melodies. Operatic laughter from LeFebvre was met with appreciative laughter from the audience as he completed his portion of the program.

The concert concluded with two jazz standards performed

by Peter Dominguez, professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass, and Dan Wall, associate professor of Jazz Piano. Dominguez’s bass dates back to the 1790s, predating the refurbished piano by more than a century. They began with a rendition of “Soul Eyes” by Mal Waldron, a song that emobides the spirit of legendary bassist and photographer Milt Hinton, whose photography subjects, according to Dominguez, “were responding to [his] soul.” Hinton’s pictures are currently on display at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. The low growl of the bass and slow, cautious melodies evoked the lone-

liness of a solitary, late-night walk. The duo’s second piece, George Shearing’s “Conception,” was sprightly and light. The mu-

sic contrasted the previous work with an abundance of rhythmic energy and closed the concert in a spirited gambol.

OCC Overhaul Inspired

by Japanese Photocopier Continued from page 10 anyone who wants to join. Recent developments have set the stage for the Collective’s rise from relatively modest origins to a more potent and pervasive artistic presence on campus.

The Collective acquired the risograph two years ago. “[This] gave us the potential to be a small press,” Kalfus said. The notion of small-scale mass production has become increasingly important to the group, according to Garbus: “[This means] caring about something to make enough of it to show other people.”

This is not to say that the OCC is evolving into an exclusionary enterprise, according to Kalfus. “The idea behind the collective at the moment is to get as many people as possible using the resources that we have and making stuff and printing,” said Kalfus. One of the main goals that the Collective is pursuing is to promote accessibility to the risograph and additional printing materials housed in Wilder 328.

Garbus admitted that, since the Collective’s inception, engagement has not been as robust as the organization would like. “We’ve been a little slow to get off the ground with community involvement,” he said. In order to increase the number of students involved in the Collective, Garbus runs a workshop that instructs students in the operation of the risograph. After they have been properly trained to handle the equipment, students are granted unlimited access to the studio.

Kalfus and Garbus both emphasized that the role of workshops and Garbus’s open office hours do not necessarily exist to teach students how to make quality comics but instead aim to empower them to produce art according to their own creative visions.

One major new initiative is the Collective’s zine subscription service, the zany fliers for which have become ubiquitous across campus. Subscribers pay $5 to receive six installments of zines, released biweekly. Each installment comprises two to three zines. Distributing the zines, which are drawn, printed, folded and stapled by individual OCC artists, is done not only to promote awareness about the organization’s work but is also, according to Buckwalter, an important way to support the creativity of independent student artists.

Both Kalfus and Garbus describe themselves as among “the next generation” of OCC members. Though most of the founders, including M.J. Robinson, OC ’14, James Scott, OC ’14, Matt Davis, OC ’13, and Sam Szabo, OC ’13, have graduated, the Collective is avidly pursuing fresh trajectories without abandoning the founders’ core creative philosophy, according to Garbus.

Long-term ambitions include collaboration with other oncampus groups. Already, the Collective has partnered with Oberlin’s Exhibition Initiative, a student group devoted to curating exhibitions for student artwork. It has also considered collaborating with the Apollo Outreach Initiative to promote comics workshops at local schools. This would be similar to the Collective’s previous work with The Backspace, a local afterschool program.

Sports

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IN THE LOCKER ROOM

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

Ultimate Frisbee Captains

This week, the Review sat down with the women’s Ultimate Frisbee captains, sophomores Caela Brodigan and Maya Gillett, to discuss the team’s goals this year, how the team has changed and how long they’ve been playing Frisbee.

that be known, but with everything there’s going to be changes. I think this year we’re very on the same page, which will be beneficial for us.

We have a younger team, and there’s a great energy and attitude. We also have a snarkier team, which I personally love. I feel like we have more of a bite and more of a fight to us, and since it’s a younger team with younger captains, we are switching things up and evolving more.

How has the season been going so far?

Maya Gillett: Our season has been going well so far. We had one tournament a couple of weekends ago, and we split into two teams because we had so many new players. I think both of our teams did really well. I think we’re all pretty pumped to have as many first-years as we do. That was unexpected for me and definitely got me really excited.

Caela Brodigan: I think it’s been going awesome. I love our team this year. We have intense players, but we also all have a lot of fun, and I think we’re just going to keep getting better.

What are the first few weeks of the season like with tryouts and all the new first-years?

MG: The process for that is really informal, but we give ourselves about five or six weeks to observe everyone playing and how often they can come to practices. We do make it a policy to welcome anyone who wants to play, but something we’re doing a little bit different this year is setting a higher expectation for attendance and commitment.

CB: We don’t have tryouts per se.

Everybody who wants to play is always welcome, and that’s something we definitely stress, but we will split into A and B teams.

As captains, what are your responsibilities and how do those that factor into practices?

MG: So far, our practices have been very responsive to the team’s progress. We didn’t plan out a whole year of practices. At the beginning of the year we decided to see how things progressed, and as people are ready for new drills and information, we’ll start working that into practice.

What is the most fun part of playing Frisbee at Oberlin?

MG: The part that I love the most is the community that it has given me, and that’s been true everywhere I have played Frisbee, but especially at Oberlin. It’s a really amazing group of people, and I’m really happy that I started playing here.

Caela Brodigan (left) and Maya Gillett CB: What we normally do, and we’re getting better at this, is meet once a week and plan practice for that week. In the beginning of the year, we were meeting almost every day trying to figure out how we wanted to structure the team, what message we wanted to send and how we wanted to run practice. We needed to figure out what the format would be and what the tone would be.

What are your team goals for this season?

MG: Something that I think Caela and I have been on the same page about since we both knew we were going to be captains is that we see a ton of potential in our team, especially the potential to push ourselves and work harder. At the same time, we also know that’s something that we want to have the team decide for itself. That’s not something we

would ever impose on people. Overall, something that we’re both on the same page about is how to bring intensity to the team and match that with fun.

CB: Our goals for this season really depend on what the team wants.

My goal is whatever the team wants.

Maybe we can go further — we definitely have the potential to be amazing. Loving the game and having fun are the most important things for us, but it’s going to be up to the team.

What are hurdles you have to face that are specific to Frisbee being a club sport?

MG: That’s a tough question. I think that one thing that’s hard is not necessarily always having consistent funding. We have a very generous budget from the Club Sports Council, but it is something that we sometimes have to fight for. We actually just went through a process

of trying to get more people on our team elected to the Student Finance Committee, which went really well.

It’s a challenge not always knowing where the money is coming from to pay for tournaments. Another thing is that Caela and I will end up having to front a lot of expenses over the year. That’s something that a varsity team doesn’t have to navigate.

Do you think there have been any significant changes from last year to this year’s team?

MG: I definitely agree with that.

We graduated some of our more experienced players because they were all seniors last year, and this year we have a huge class of first-years, a huge sophomore class, a pretty big junior class and only two seniors, which I personally think is super exciting.

CB: I think absolutely. [Junior] Ally [Fulton] and Rosie [Black, OC ’14] were both amazing captains, let

Did you play Frisbee in high school?

MG: This is my seventh year playing frisbee — I started playing in eighth grade.

CB: I have been playing for a long time. In third grade I went to a Frisbee camp for a week-long camp over the summer and played in the [Summer Ultimate League of Amherst], a summer ultimate league, but it was just kind of pick-up Frisbee when I was little. I started playing competitively in eighth grade and we would go to high school tournaments, and then in ninth grade we competed at the college level.

Did Frisbee influence your decision to attend Oberlin at all?

MG: No, not for me, but I knew I wanted to play.

CB: One of the major factors in choosing a school was the Frisbee team. I looked at how the team practices and what the team community was like. It wasn’t just Frisbee — there are other factors going on — but it was definitely up there.

Interview by Tyler Sloan, Sports editor Photo by Rachel Dan

Scott Stands Out Among Volleyball First-Years Tyler Sloan Sports Editor The women’s volleyball team is already well into its season with a 4–13 record heading into its fourth North Coast Athletic Conference game against the Denison University Big Red on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at home. Before the Yeowomen will have an opportunity to contend with the Big Red, they will travel to Pittsburgh to face Penn St.-Behrend and La Roche College in a doubleheader. This year’s squad is younger than ever with 11 underclassmen bolstering the Yeowomen’s roster, five of whom are first-years. Leading the group is first-year Claudia Scott, who hails from San Antonio, Texas.

Scott has been on the volleyball court since the age of eight, and she has followed her passion all the way to Ohio as a middle hitter for the Yeowomen. When discussing her decision to pursue volleyball at Oberlin, Scott said it was a combination of Oberlin’s academics and athletics that ultimately persuaded her to attend.

“I think it was a mix of the two. I re-

ally like the College itself, and getting to play volleyball was a bonus. I found Oberlin through volleyball,” she said.

On the academic front, Scott is still exploring her options within a diverse schedule. Currently, she is toying with the idea of studying biology, international politics or environmental politics, which led her to take classes such as her first-year seminar, “Race-ing the Environment.” Despite the heavy workload and intense practice schedule, Scott says she actually has more leisure time than she did back home. “[Volleyball] is less time-consuming here than it was in high school.

[But] it’s a little bit more intense here, and you can tell people care more because we’re not on scholarships; we are here to just play,” she said.

Despite Scott’s standout season thus far, she hasn’t always had her sights set on playing volleyball at the collegiate level.

“I kind of decided my sophomore year of high school. It was more of a ‘If I can play in college, I will,’ but it wasn’t a goal,” she said.

Scott certainly can play in college.

So far in her rookie season, the 5-foot11-inch middle hitter has already managed to tally 128 kills, averaging 2.03 kills per set and 2.26 points per set.

Defensively, Scott has also put points on the board, with 86 digs and 30 reception errors.

Looking forward, Scott and the rest of the Yeowomen still have a long way to go this season with conference play finally underway. Currently, the Yeowomen are on a seven-game losing streak and are 0–3 in conference play.

Still, the packed schedule leaves much room for improvement. Last year, the team finished its season with a 12–19 record, playing a total of 31 games.

With 30 games slated for the 2014 season, the Yeowomen still have time to shift gears and match or better their record from last year.

Despite the rough first half of the season, Scott has maintained a positive mindset and says volleyball has positively contributed to her Oberlin experience thus far. “[Volleyball] is going really, really well. All the girls are great, and it’s definitely a positive experience,” she said.

First-year Claudia Scott looks to hit the ball during a match this season. Scott has 128 kills for the Yeowomen.

Courtesy of Kyle Youngblood

The Oberlin Review, October 3, 2014

Women’s Soccer Wins 8th Consecutive Game Continued from page 6 game itself really fast,” Cook said. “We’re used to training on the really nice grass that we have here, and it’s a very different surface. So that took a lot of time to adjust to. But we were able to do that towards the end; I put a ball through to Gwennie, who ran onto it and finished it.”

Though the team was able to pull out a win against the Bearcats, Sacristan felt the team didn’t play to its full potential in the match.

“The field conditions weren’t what we were used to, but we adapted well,” she said. “It wasn’t the best game we played, but we didn’t get down.”

Head Coach Dan Palmer also noted that the team struggled early against Saint Vincent, but made the necessary changes in the second half and improved its play.

“I thought we got off to a slow start because of the field conditions, but we slowly and surely figured it out and made good adjustments in the second half.”

Despite the seven con-

secutive wins, the team isn’t resting on its laurels and still hopes to improve its performance enough to make a mark in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

“Your communication as a team can always be better,” Sacristan said. “We’ve been doing really well so far, but I think that we can definitely keep improving. It’s just about keeping our intensity up now that we know that we can win against good teams.”

Cook said she agreed and hopes the current winning streak will help keep the Yeowomen’s mindset in the right place throughout the rest of the season.

“We are always trying to improve our defensive shape and our attacking creativity,” she said. “Once you kind of get into the swing of winning, usually that momentum helps you game to game, but there are still things we need to improve on.”

The team also played against Baldwin Wallace University on Thursday, Oct. 2, bringing their winning streak to eight games with a 3–1 win.

Sports

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— Men’s Soccer —

Yeomen Have Successful Start to Conference Play, Move Record to 4–4 Sarena Malsin Staff Writer

The men’s soccer team began conference play with a bang last Saturday when it defeated its North Coast Athletic Conference foe the Wittenberg University Tigers 2–1 on Fred Shults Field. Unfortunately, the Yeomen were unable to build on the win and fell in double overtime to the Baldwin Wallace University Yellow Jackets on Wednesday.

In the win over the Tigers, Wertman volleyed in a corner kick from junior forward John Ingham in the 17th minute of the first half to give the Yeomen an early 1–0 lead.

The lead was short-lived, however, as the Tigers countered with a goal of their own just before the halftime whistle, tying the game 1–1.

The Yeomen came out of the break strong, and in the 60th minute sophomore midfielder Dan Lev finished a cross from Wertman in the lower right corner of the Tigers’ goal, giving the Yeomen a 2–1 lead that would stand for the remainder of the game.

Despite losing their lead right before the half, the Yeomen kept up steady offensive pressure throughout the course of the match, with other close shots coming from Ingham,

senior midfielder Sam Winward and sophomore forward Sam Weiss.

“We competed the whole way,” said Lev. “It was overall one of our better games.”

Head Coach Blake New said the Yeomen’s success against Wittenberg had a lot to do with the team’s focus on finesse.

“The number one thing we value is possession,” New said. “[Wittenberg] played pretty directly and relied on their physical size and strength to be dangerous. It was really pretty simple soccerwise — just one, two passes and we were dangerous.”

Beyond the Yeomen’s tactical dominance over Wittenberg, both Lev and Wertman considered the team’s attitude during Saturday’s victory a departure from the standard in prior games.

“There was a difference in mentality going into that game,” said Wertman. “We were much more confident, with everyone willing to put in the work, and I think that was lacking in our past games.”

Lev agreed with this sentiment.

“We made fewer mental errors.

We played the full 90 minutes instead of having mental lapses and made a full performance that gave us a chance to win,” he said.

New was also pleased with the Yeomen’s style of play, remark-

ing that the team “showed a lot of poise.”

The Yeomen’s performance against Wittenberg marks a promising start to their competition in the NCAC this year.

“Our goal as a team is to win the conference,” said New. “I think we have a good shot at doing that, but every game’s going to be tough. We have to be ready each time out.”

Wertman sees the conference win as just the beginning of the Yeomen’s success this season.

“We struggled early on, but we’ve found our feet finally,” he said. “I think going forward in the conference it’s huge to win this one and steady ourselves.”

The Yeomen followed their win over the Tigers with a non-conference match against Baldwin Wallace University ending in a devastating 3–2 home loss that was decided during double overtime in the 101st minute of the match.

Sophomore midfielder Nick Wertman tallied two scores for the Yeomen, but ultimately the team was unable to hold the Yellow Jackets off for the full 120 minutes.

After their five-game home stretch, the Yeomen will travel to Crawfordsville, IN, to jump back into conference play against the Wabash College Little Giants this Sunday, Oct. 5.

Editorial: Dodgers, Tigers Look Poised for Deep Postseason Runs Continued from page 16 missing the big bat in the middle that could propel them deep into October. Give it a few years, and Bryce Harper could be just that — but not this year.

It’s hard to count out the Cardinals given their track record in October, but this year’s team has far more issues than those in past years. Adam Wainwright and Lance Lynn have been solid all year at the front of St. Louis’s rotation, and the back end of the bullpen has been good as well. Still, offensive struggles will likely doom the Cards.

Matt Carpenter, Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina all had off years by their lofty standards, and I’m not willing to go out on a limb and predict a sudden bounce back in the postseason.

The Giants are in a similar position to the Cardinals, as they have lots of postseason experience, but not enough talent to make a run. Buster Posey, Hunter Pence and Madison Bumgarner are all great players, but I don’t see enough talent on the rest of the team for the Giants to even advance past the Nationals.

On the AL side of things, this year’s Tigers team has an even deeper starting rotation than last year’s team that lost in the American League Championship Series to the Red Sox, but they are plagued by the same problem that has haunted them in year’s past: a shaky bullpen. Even with the additions of Joakim Soria and Joe Nathan this year, they still have a below average bullpen.

Still, if any team can make up for that, it’s Detroit. Miguel Cabrera finished a down season — for him — with a huge September, and Victor Martinez, J.D. Martinez and Ian Kinsler provide big bats in the middle of their lineup. Couple that with a rotation headlined by the last three AL Cy Young Award winners, and you have a team no one

wants to face this time of year.

The AL lacking a favorite this postseason has a lot to do with the fact that the Angels lost starter Garrett Richards to a knee injury in mid-August. The Halos did manage to go 22–14 after the injury, but unfortunately for them, the impact of losing their ace will be amplified in the playoffs. Now, even with likely MVP Mike Trout in the fold, the Angels will have a tough time making an extended run. A rotation of Jered Weaver, CJ Wilson and Matt Shoemaker just won’t cut it in October.

The Orioles will also be held back by their starting rotation. Wei-Yin Chen and Chris Tillman both had solid years, but neither will be confused for the ace of a staff any time soon. A strong bullpen and offensive firepower — they ranked first in the MLB in home runs — are Baltimore’s calling cards, but I don’t see these strong points outweighing their weak staff.

As for the remaining AL team, the Royals, I’d love to see them make a run, as they are this year’s Cinderella story, but I find it hard to imagine that the team that ranked last in all of baseball in home runs can win a playoff series. They made up for it in the regular season by leading baseball in steals, but come playoff time, the ability to knock one out of the park once in a while is huge.

Here’s hoping they prove me wrong.

In the end, it’s a tough call, but I like the Tigers over the Angels in the ALCS and the Dodgers in a close one over the Nationals in the NLCS. That would make it a Dodgers-Tigers World Series, and from there I like L.A.’s chances of winning it all.

Like every year, making predictions for this set of playoffs is a bit of a crapshoot, but if Tuesday night’s Wild Card game between the Royals and Athletics is any indication, it’s going to be one hell of an October.

The Oberlin Review

“There was a foul at the top of [Wittenberg’s penalty] box, so we had a free kick,” said sophomore Camille Sacristan. “Hannah Cook slotted the ball perfectly in behind their defense, then Ellie played it really nicely into the corner of the net.”

After the come-from-behind victory over the Tigers, the Yeowomen traveled to Latrobe, PA, in search of their seventh con-

secutive win last Tuesday. The game was played in less than ideal conditions, but the team was still able to pull out a 1–0 victory on another clutch goal from Gardiner at the 59-minute mark.

“It was a weird game because the field was tiny and the turf was fast, so it made the

The women’s soccer team won its seventh consecutive game this past Tuesday, pushing its record to 7–3 and leaving the team with its greatest number of wins in any season since 2002. The win, a 1–0 victory over the Saint Vincent College Bearcats, came on the heels of a thrilling 2–1 double overtime win See Women’s, page 15 against the Wittenberg Tigers last Saturday in the Yeowomen’s first conference match of the season.

The win against Wittenberg is especially indicative of the team’s progress this season, since the Tigers defeated the Yeowomen 6–0 the last time the two teams met.

“We came out, and I think everyone was a little nervous,” said first-year Hannah Cook.

“But once we settled in and realized we were on the same level as this team, we started to put stuff together, and the momentum really shifted toward us as the game went on.

I think once we got the equalizer, the team really started to believe we could do it.”

The Yeowomen fell behind 1–0 in the game on a Tiger goal at the 52-minute mark, but first-year midfielder Gwennie Gardiner answered with a goal less than 12 minutes later.

The game remained tied all the way to the 103rd minute, when junior Ellie Huizenga knocked in the game winner off a pass from Junior Ellie Huizenga dribbles past a Wittenberg defender in a 2–1 double overtime victory last SaturCook. day. The Yeowomen have won eight consecutive games.

Courtesy of Simeon Deutsch

— Football —

Defense Struggles, Yeomen Fall to Wittenberg Tigers Nate Levinson and Tyler Sloan Sports Editors The Yeomen played in their new home facilities for their second conference game of the year against the nationally ranked Wittenberg University Tigers on Saturday, Sept. 27 and ultimately came up short in a 48–10 defeat.

In similar fashion to their previous game against The College of Wooster Fighting Scots, the Yeomen’s struggles were rooted in the defense’s inability to get off the field on third down and stop the run. The Yeomen allowed the Tigers to convert seven of twelve third down opportunities and were gashed for 197 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.

“We’re one play away from getting off the field a lot of the time, and we’re also one person away from making a play,” said senior linebacker Max Schenk. “Football a lot of times comes down to numbers, and if not all 11 people are on the same page during the same play, a big play can easily happen.”

Giving up big plays has been all too common for the Yeomen, and though they have been outscored by a whopping 101 points the last two weeks combined, Schenk believes the scores have not reflected the way the team has played.

“The stats and the numbers of our defense don’t speak to how we’ve actually been playing,” said Schenk, “but they’re also indicative of certain mental errors that we make at crucial times.”

six catches and 78 yards against the Tigers.

With a bye this week, Anderson and his fellow coaches have taken their foot off the gas pedal and are putting the focus on keeping locker room morale high.

“We just focus on what we can focus on,” he said. “We make sure our guys understand what we’re working toward. We have to keep the mood light for our players, but we also have to focus on what’s important — attack every day and get better day by day. Our guys are doing a great job, and they understand they’re young.”

This week’s bye also gives the Yeomen a great opportunity to get healthy before a big conference match against the DePauw University Tigers on Oct. 11. “[The bye week is] about making sure that the guys physically are able to bounce back,” Anderson said. “We want to be as close to 100 percent when we face DePauw in a couple weeks.”

After losing 45–11 on the road to DePauw last season, the Yeomen are out to prove that they’re a new and improved team this season.

“Last year we lost [against DePauw] in not a very good way,” said Cruz. “They’re definitely a beatable team. We definitely should beat them. They’re not anybody that’s out of our reach. It’ll be a really good game, it’ll be a dogfight, and we’re looking for some revenge because they came out and smacked us last year.”

Last Wednesday marked the first day of October, which means one thing: It’s once again time for postseason baseball.

This year’s edition features a few old staples, as well as some new faces searching for Major League Baseball’s ultimate prize.

Neither the American nor the National League have a clear favorite, as the Tigers, Orioles and Angels all look capable of making a run in the AL, and both the Dodgers and Nationals stand out from the crowd in the NL. Despite winning 94 games and beating out the Giants for the NL West crown by six games, the Dodgers underperformed for most of the year, especially considering the fact that they had the league’s highest payroll and played in the same division as the two worst teams in baseball.

Still, they’re my pick to win the NL pennant.

Their combination of a potent offense and a dominant pitching staff — they finished second in the NL in runs scored and fourth in the NL in earned run average — is unmatched.

And as if that’s not enough, they have the best pitcher on the planet, Clayton Kershaw, who is having one of the best seasons of any pitcher in the last 50 years.

Heading into the playoffs, the Dodgers’ primary challenger in the NL appears to be the Nationals. Buoyed by a solid bullpen and the best starting rotation in baseball, they steamrolled their way to the most wins in the NL. Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and Doug Fister are as good a one through three as anyone in the league can throw out there, and that makes them a dangerous team in any playoff series.

Second baseman Anthony Rendon is one of the most underrated offensive players baseball, but outside of him, I don’t see enough offense for the Nats to win it all. They boast a relatively deep lineup, but are still See Editorial, page 15

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Sophomore defensive back Adrian Kelly drags down a Wittenberg University ball carrier in a game last Saturday. Kelly had 11 total tackles and a pass breakup in the game.

Courtesy of Rachel Grossman

Junior quarterback Lucas Poggiali also cited the defense’s inexperience as a reason for the Yeomen’s recent struggles.

“Right now, because of injuries, we’re pretty young on the defensive line,” he said. “There were times when we had four freshmen on our defensive line, and when you’re playing against a team like Wittenberg, they’re bound to struggle; they’re bound to go through growing pains.”

Despite the mental errors and unpromising results, Head Coach Jay Anderson believes the team is trending in the right direction.

“I thought we played much better against Wittenberg than we did against Wooster,” he said.

While Anderson readily admits that the team isn’t content with its slow start, he’s still confident in the Yeomen’s ability to rebound.

“We’re not where we expected to be,” he said. “I think there’s a level of disappointment there that we started the season 1–3, but we’re encouraged by some of the things that are happening on the football field, and we’re encouraged by the next six games that we have to compete.”

Though some young players struggled early in the season, others have begun contributing more in recent weeks. Sophomore wide receiver Justin Cruz and Coach Anderson noted that first-years Trace McConnell and Corey Fussinger have stepped up their level of play recently. The two combined for

Nate Levinson Sports Editor

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Yeowomen Win Double Overtime Thriller

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— Women’s Soccer —

October 3, 2014

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Sports